Watching the cleric showcase and using cast time as a way to interact with an encounter is perfect. I think this concept should be applied to all classes. Usually cast time is just to balance out more powerful abilities, the way the cleric was demonstrated it was used as a way to customize existing abilities on the fly. The toolkit gets exponentially larger with this in place, definitely keep it.
Glad to hear that you enjoyed the showcase and this interesting mechanic! Be sure to drop your feedback in the official thread, if you haven't already! I know that this was a topic our team was especially interested in hearing thoughts on :wink:
https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/56029/feedback-request-alpha-two-cleric-archetype-updates-shown-in-july-livestream/p1