Do auto-attacks serve any meaningful purpose?

[HikariKurosawa]

No it's a fact, go look at combat in 1.0 on youtube, your character just stands there in idle animation inbetween weapon attacks, which makes the game feel slow and clunky, it's why they added AA's and OGCD moves

That's literally what ogcds are for now. 1.0 combat is irrelevant compared to modern ffxiv combat.