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So reading the mechanics for Guardian I noticed two key pain points for the traditional frontliner Guardian:
1) Taunt makes you about as difficult to hit as a normal character, so the taunted enemy doesn't really mind being forced to attack you
2) Therefore, you will rarely if ever get the damage bonus from Ferocious Vengeance
So being the contrarian that I am my immediate thought was that if you aren't a melee character then you get to avoid the defensive penalties while your allies still get to reap the defensive benefits. Taunt has a 30 ft range, and can even be boosted to a 120 ft range, which clearly means that this is intended behavior. If you use a Meteor Shield as your ranged weapon you can still benefit from Shielding Taunt's DC improvement which is really important for a build that only cares about the taunt mechanic. Here's a mockup of what the feat build would look like:
1: Long Distance Taunt
2: Shielding Taunt
4: Area Cover
6: Reflexive Shield
8: Group Taunt
10: Shield from Arrows
12: Shield Salvation
14: Bloody Denial
16: Improved Reflexive Shield
18: Shield from Spells
20: Never!
You could and maybe should consider slotting Ranger archetype in there somewhere, using Hunt Prey just to double your range increment can be really nice. The most important part of this build is your team composition though; you really need a frontliner with Reactive Strike for this to make sense. But if you do, then getting taunted suuuucks for your enemy. The Fighter is harder to hit, hitting the Fighter means getting hit harder by the Guardian, and if you try to approach the Guardian you get whacked by the Fighter.
Personally I think this is hilarious and hope it gets even more support in the final version of the class. Give us Far Throw as a class feat Paizo.
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I was thinking something similar, except instead I'd use this:
https://2e.aonprd.com/Weapons.aspx?ID=85
I'd just use the aklys to make ranged trips and taunt from range. Ranged trip is a -2 but still scales off of your Strength + Athletics instead of being a true ranged option so it'll still be more accurate than trying to hit someone, even more so when you start lagging behind in accuracy. Still has the thrown property in case you actually do want to hit someone. One-handed so you've still got a shield ready, and if they close in on you you can just use the regular trip feature. Only problem is that RAW ranged trip doesn't actually work with the returning rune, but the tethered feature ameliorates that somewhat. Makes the Guardian more of a ranged debuffing bot that can tank more than a tank that has a debuff, and you can just opt to play like a normal Guardian based on enemy types and the combat situation.
One note is that for the most part, you are tougher than a normal character, you get your AC increases two levels sooner (which incidentally, means you have taunting AC equal to what the Champion has at the same level) and some other weird tricks like Mitigate Harm.
But the backline tank idea is pretty fun.
Just getting started on understanding the Guardian. Personally I see a lot of overlap with the Champion, PC2 may change that. I can see some possible role playing of a professional rivalry between a Champion and a Guardian in the same team.