It doesn't have to be turn-based. FFXI and FFXII are also great. I feel the bigger issue is that making a story heavy game while everyone else is also making story heavy games makes it no longer unique.
I wouldn't mind going back to ATB, but I don't think that would win back an audience except for nostalgia points.
Maybe more FF:T though? Kinda miss that.
A routine that just returns "yes" will also detect all AI. It would just have an abnormally high false positive rate.