I think what many are struggling to accept is this:We all recognized that pet AI in this game has been absolutely awful. This isn't a secret, everyone knows it. We have let our thoughts be known about how bad they have been, and SE has done A LOT to try and fix it.
And they have not been able to. Every new iteration of the controls of the fairies and the Egi's have been met with dislike and scorn from the fanbase and requests for another rework on them. At some point as a dev team you have to look at it and go "How much more time are we gonna sink into this problem, before maybe just acknowledging the problem isn't one we can fix, and the best way we could handle it is by removing the problem." That's what we are seeing with both SMN and SCH this expansion. SE finally saying "We've tried everything we got, it did not work. Pets are now there for flavor only."
I think this is SE finally acknowledging they just will not be able to fix pets in this game and just stating they are there for flavor and lore reasons only. Demi's also seem to have become less interactive as it looks like they no longer attack when the smn attacks and also don't follow your movements, the only action you make them do is Enkindle outside of that they spit out damage on their own.
Which look I get why that frustrates some. I get why people who really love pet based mechanics would feel really angered about this. But I also can get why at some point continuously trying to fix something that is broken to shit over and over again just is no longer reasonable.
