Do auto-attacks serve any meaningful purpose?

[Syln]

Well you would be wrong, they didn't have AA's in 1.0, they added them in ARR, because turns out having your character just stand there like a plumb in front of the enemy for nearly 3s in-between weaponskills is really really jarring.

I can see Auto attack being relevant 11 years ago to provide dynamism to a very slow gameplay.
The fact is that it's not anymore.