Fully animated particles

Around year 2000 - the world of 3d design and animation software still was different - we used C4D for some hobby projects, mainly space related SciFi. Many scenes there, for instance fighter clashes, high frequence weapon fire were created by using particle emitters that instanciate animated particle objects. The animations of the particles were referenced to the particle's lifetime, not to the global scene time. So, each animation setup on the particle template object (key frames or what else) was considered with respect to the particle's lifetime.

In the meantime C4D has developed into a profi tool with time limited licensing models; hence, it isn't available for just for fun enthusiasts anymore.

So, we are trying to realize comparable ideas on Blender, but were not successful so far. The internal particle system isn't able to use the particle's lifetime as time reference. Even if we tried to use an object or a collection as instance, the global time is applied for animation calculation and all particle instances show the same behaviour. We observed the same, when we tried to realize emitting by using geometry nodes (for instance instances on points). According to some notes found in the internet it seems that Blender's internal calculation flow for geometry nodes/particle system isn't able to do, what is desired. As workaround, mainly baking is recommended, but it isn't a practical solution when fine adjustments of the particle's intrinsic animations are required.

We do not exclude, that there is a way after that - but which? Or are there plans to realize an "fully animated particle feature"?