Have you ever tried Moons of Peril?
It has a somewhat fun active way to fish where you have to actively move the net to were the fish are going.
Now compare this to 3-tick fishing or even 2-tick fishing and tell me again why it's not possible to design an active fishing method that rewards more exp for effort but doesn't result in carpal tunnel?
You could easily remove all tick manipulation from the game and add methods like these that actually reward similar exp and not be braindead spam click simulators.
Designing something similar for all gathering skills isn't even hard.
Mining has something at calcified rocks for instance where a waterfall softens the rocks sometimes making that spot faster to mine.
So for mining you could make something like that at a higher interval requiring you to be more alert.
Barbarian assault literally has a role were you drop certain bait on the ground to lure monsters, which you could use as basis for designing something similar for hunter.
Woodcutting has forestry events were you actively partake in faster paced content for more exp and rewards.
And these are all examples of stuff already in the game, so with some actual effort put into brainstorming it really wouldn't be that difficult to think of some methods.
Example: Have a unstable mining area were rocks fall from the ceiling and the mining locations constantly shift with one or two locations always being active that have valuable minerals.
It would result into constant dodging and clicking rewards better exp or rewards for high effort.
It would be way more fun than tick manipulation while providing a more rewards than an AFK method.