That's a really good idea for that time limit they look like there parent just not as big as there parent.
Printable View
But they can make little changes here and there so it isn't a warlock dressed up in Summoner gear. And make it mainly a PET class with Dots. And fix what need to be fixed. And i think those so called people that you state are just dealing with it and don't careless if it changed or not. Also if the devs wanted to do a complete over haul they can Summoner was never in the beta. And until the first exp pack comes out FFXIV ARR is still in a BETA form since SE keep changing different things even War i think it was had an update to fixes something.
The most engaging summoner in any Final Fantasy game was most definitely Yuna from FFX because you had direct control of the monster.
FFXII Espers are somewhat like these Egi primals. But the reason they aren't full-fledged is because the Primals in this game are actually story elements, and summoners aren't rare, unlike in say FF9 where Bahamut can kill 3 main characters but still be summoned by Garnet because she's the only one who's supposed to be able to do it.
I kind of want endgame summoners to be able to summon the legit, full-fledged forms of the Primals, but it probably won't happen anytime soon. I'd wager something like that would require a limit break gauge, or a sacrifice from your party members to be able to do it.
Maybe the closest comparison in your mind is WoW's Warlock. But consider this.
In the FF universe, there are 6 Properties of Magic (that I can think of at this posting). The categories into which every spell fits is "Elemental vs. Unaspected", and within that we have Destructive, Restorative, Debilitative, and Enhancement. Every caster and summon monster has ever held true to this magical construct over the years.
In the case of FFXIV - Elemental Destructive Magic is covered primarily by BLM, and to a lesser extent WHM. Elemental Restorative Magic is a WHM's specialty. Unaspected Restorative Magic goes to SCH. Which leaves SMN with what? Alone, we are Unaspected Debilitative Magic (what FF13 referred to as Saboteur) with a minor in Unaspected Destructive. Our pet adds to this by giving us what should be Elemental Destructive/Debilitative, but the elemental part is as yet lacking in this game.
We are our own niche now. There is no need to overhaul the job just because it's unfamiliar. A few little tweaks to increase pet interaction and an elementals-based reason to get more of them and we should be fine.