Regardless of your personal feelings of CC and what was done, I'm sure all of you will agree that the idea of Chrono Break, whatever it would've been, was tantalizing and something that should've happened 20 years ago, especially to bridge the gap between CC and CT and get something could've closed the book better, given fans somethingthat "felt better," pleased all segments of the fanbase, and also affected Square Enix for the better.
First off, what kind of plot would work best for CB? My particular idea is this: the titular "break" would refer to a rift in the spacetime continuum, between events of a "good timeline" and a "bad timeline." CC is found to have taken place in the "bad timeline." The rift, naturally, has to do with Lavos still being a threat, and to save all of existence, the rift has to be healed and Lavos erased completely from existence. This is where our heroes come in. The original CT 6 (from the "good timeline") and core members of the Radical Dreamers (namely Serge, Kid, Pierre, Harle, Riddel, Mel and Leena in particular), as well as one or two brand new characters, have to come together to deal with this threat. Serge is brought back and gets his memories of CC back as well, since he's important. And this entire game is thus to resolve all the dangling plot threads that were left open or "not explained coherently in CC." In the end, Lavos is defeated, the rift is healed, and the bad timeline becomes absorbed into the good one, with the lives of the Radical Dreamers greatly improved, history of both timelines changed for the better.
The approach would be to naturally find the great middle ground between CT and CC. Have a more stripped-down approach to gameplay and combat in some areas, including the gameplay world and design, more like the original, but compensate with the story being a bit more intense and complex. Have a foot in the original but also a foot in evolving with the times. There never was going to be a way to perfectly recreate CT, because the settings which it was made can never come back. Also, CB would be made and released in the post-9/11 era, a period of shattered innocence and dealing with greater geopolitical uncertainty. The original tone can never be fully resurrected, but a way to close the book, transition, with "We've all had to grow up in ways we didn't expect", can be extremely powerful.
Of course, for the game to be made, the situation inside Square Enix would have to be very different from 1999 onward, especially in order to "keep the team together." First off, Monolith Soft would not have to be formed and the Xeno games would have to stay put at Square/Square Enix, because this is where most former employees ended up going to. Arguably, with the Xenosaga and Xenoblade games being here, it would've really added luster to Square Enix, given them more firepower in their arsenal, especially in striking the right note tonally and between simplicity and complexity.
Then, Hironobu Sakaguchi would also have to not leave. He'd still resign his administrative duties after Spirits Within, but remain involved creatively, especially to share duties alongside Tetsuya Nomura. After all, Nomura having no one to delegate to and his possessive desire for perfection has hurt the company a bit. He bears so much responsibility on his shoulders and can't really juggle multiple balls at the same time. That would help ensure that Masato Kato wouldn't leave the company, either, and he could stay involved in this.
Getting rid of "2 years to a game" was good, but they've clearly overcorrected. Having no time limit means things have gone quite astray, much like the development of Duke Nukem Forever, and only further enabled Nomura's perfectionism. Good or even great as the games that suffered delays are, there's still no getting around the fact they feel overcooked. A guardrail of 3-5 years per game would definitely keep things in place, especially to enable better results for the Final Fantasy 13 series, FF15, Kingdom Hearts III and all future KH games, and so on.
And not slashing the R&D budget for too long. I understand that Yoichi Wada had to do it in 2001 to keep Square alive until the merger, but FF10, FF11, KH1 and FF10-2 brought the company restored profitability, as did the consummation of the merger. Wada didn't need to keep the cuts anymore, and could've poured more money in. But it affected things down the line in ways no one could expect. And of course, having to do it again after the Wada regime ended. You can't always get "more for less."
This last part is more an "advisable" and a preference of mine. But I think that if Disney had been a full partner on KH rather than a licenser, and collaborated creatively on shaping the story while letting Square Enix do the hard work of making the game, the series could've been even better than we've got. More Disney assets, more Square Enix IPs crossing over (imagine Chrono in the KH world!), more worlds. If anything, maximalism would work for that series, including the point of doing 2 DVD-ROMs for the games in the PS2 era. It could've turbocharged both Square Enix and Disney considerably.
And then, at this point in history, 20 years after the trilogy, there would be a soft reboot of sorts, a new story, new setting and new characters under the Chrono name.
Get these ducks in a row, I see not only CB becoming a reality, but other fallow IPs (The Last Remnant, Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve, Threads of Fate) still being considered viable today and Square Enix having a much brighter future where much of its luster is still present, where it doesn't reach the point of being considered an aging also-ran in the RPG world, but still one of the big boys in the club.
