A good question, an interesting one. I'd answer with a qualified 'no'. The reason: It depends on the quantity you apply and whether there will be any other treatment to the item rubbed, e.g., a finishing glaze, or if the item will be sauced. One could, for instance, make a cinnamon-based rub, say, that if applied heavily would be overwhelming. However, applied rather lightly, it could work fine, especially if there were components in the rub that offset the power of the cinnamon--a couple herbs like sage and thyme--and some chile to give it some bottom. Too, if, say, one were to glaze over it with an appropriate fruit-based glaze, that could further round out the profile at serving. It's not one I would lean toward developing but I could see it working out. This is the case though with most any rub and the question one should ask when developing the recipe. How will I like use this in terms of quantity and will it stand on its own or have some sort of accompaniment? I think a lot of figuring out proportions comes from the 'sense' of things one gets through trial and experience--coupled with a (forgive me) 'holistic' sense of the overall profile one wishes to achieve.
Here are a few examples of different rubs of mine.
This butt rub is a fairly typical (for me) rub for pork for typical barbecue. Chile-based, it still has a fair component of aromatics, herbs (I use more, proportionately, of both aromatics and herbs than many others do), some sweet spices, and some sugar. This
simple rib rub is pretty straightforward;
this one, however, is deliberately skewed to favor the flavor of peppercorns, in this case because I was glazing over it, lightly, near the end of cooking, with a simple pineapple glaze that I felt would soften--but not lessen--the distinctive peppercorn notes. The other spices and the Aleppo, I thought, would give it needed breadth and depth.
Here, an example of a beef rub with coffee and cocoa as components, the mod below it decreases the cocoa and alters a few other amounts of other things to make it more appropriate for shorter-cooked beef like tri-tip or steaks.
This one, also for beef, brisket in this case, is an example of a paste rub-dry rub combo. In it, I used coffee again, but no cocoa, and upped the sweet spices since there is no sugar in either the paste or the dry (except the amount found in the small Worcestershire addition) and because I wanted to balance the pickly bite and heat of the pickled peppers. And,
here, another beef steak rub (simple, and with a variation below), this time based on ground dried mushrooms.
Perhaps, looking at these, you'll see what I mean in my first paragraph of this post.