Bel Marduk said:
ATB does add a time concern. But you have to wait for a cooldown to attack or use an item again, on top of the animation which takes up time separate from the cooldown. Not just one.
Okay, I will say this once more, and I don't care if you misread it, and go on page long completely unrelated diatribe.
ATB lasts beyond the animation because the ATB is slow. If the ATB were to be the exact length of the animation, there would be no functional difference, at this point there is also no need to show an ATB bar.
FFXIII has cancels, you can line up three attacks, you can cancel out, and your ATB bar is not reset. FFXIII also has different ATB costs for different actions, as you would require in an Action RPG with an ATB bar. FFXIII is also too fast for individual character inputs which is why you control only one character and macro manage the team with scripting.
FFXIII is a game that pushed the ATB concept essentially beyond the breaking point. That is the end result of wanting to make the game as fast and engaging as possible, while still remaining command based. Versus is the same intent, fast engaging combat, without the hindrance of holding on to this traditional command based input. They could add an ATB counter, but it's useless (as you so rightly stated), because it would adhere to the length of animations.
To me they are both examples of continuing the ATB concept beyond a traditional Command-RPG interface. I personally really enjoyed FFXIII's combat, although I seem to be in the minority, and of course I haven't played Versus, so it could be shit. But I see them as both perfectly valid continuations of the Final Fantasy combat system. If you don't, that's fine, you're certainly not alone.