~20-30% of our dps being lost isn't being "heavily penalized?"
You're seeing what you want to see, and nothing else.
Take off the shades.
Garnet's main focus wasn't to summon, not in practicality. Neither was Yuna's. Rydia, as you said also had black magic(oh hey look, a precedent for a summoner to have other skills..).
Not to mention they are mechanically different, just like how the FFXIV summoner is mechanically different.
What it boils down to is you want FFXI summoner2.0, and that's it. Don't try to sugarcoat it, because everything you're saying has no support for what you want to be saying.
Oh, and guess what that means when you list 4 examples that are vastly different from one-another? There is no iconic class.
