It's important to note that things have fallen out of use due to buffs rather than nerfs. After Anet announced they were moving on to GW2 (probably around when you quit) their profession 'rebalances' just consisted of buffing the hell out of them rather than necessarily addressing the wider issues with them or nerfing the overpowered stuff, presumably because this was easier and wouldn't risk any players getting annoyed and leaving. As such, all the old stuff is still as viable as it was (likely aside from the GW Beyond content which was designed with these updates in mind). If you're interested there are archives for PvX and Guru which might provide some inspiration. Some PvX users also keep off-meta build ideas on their personal pages, though I don't know if there's a good way to search them.
Regarding your specific suggestions:
-An example of a physway/meleeway build is here. There's a lot wrong with it (I'm sure there are better examples elsewhere), but you can see the general structure with the multiple melee's getting buffed with orders, smites, etc.
-I'm also reminded of EFGJack's coordinated ball and spike builds. Unfortunately the images are gone but the videos show off the playstyle sufficiently.
Aside from that, there's nothing stopping you from putting something together yourself. That's the biggest appeal for a lot of people. As mentioned, the game has been made significantly easier than it was, so even if the concept ends up being lackluster it should still be generally capable. Even inherently gimmicky setups such as teams of all the same primary profession can function.
Finally, execution matters. The game wasn't meant to be a case of loading the correct skill bars and then coasting through to success. This tends to be forgotten nowadays with overpowered setups devaluing player competence, but things like pulling, aggroing, flagging heroes, preprotting, etc, used to be what made the difference between success and failure. So even supposedly 'bad' builds (by modern standards) can work if you put in a little effort.