Rob I can only post by phone at the mo, hence can’t be very allaborative.

The point I made about seeing pics of Guardians in pairs, and not others is that because it was two aircraft that looked the same, but doing two roles.
Grumman and the Navy were trying to make a point about its effectiveness.
As others have said, it was done before, all be it with aircraft that wouldn’t have been specifically designed to do one precise job or the other.
If the call came, Guardians would have had to operate in groups rather than pairs anyhow, note more 2S strikers built than the 2W pickets.
I think a low number of late Guardians were actually built as combined hunter/killers.
The type is interesting as an early type to use ECM and MAD to help in its role of hunting subs.

The concept of pairs was revised with the early helicopter AS operations, where consideration of range and weight effectively meant that one aircraft operated as a hunter and the other as strike.

I would think the reason that the Guardian isn’t more desirable on the display circuit is that it just too much of an unkown low production type for most.