It's a tough challenge. I get why Yoshi P and the Dev Team decided to give us Egis (tiny representations that aren't really the actual beings):

* The render / stress on the servers would be too great, if say, hundreds of players all pulled out their High Detailed Summons (like a Real Ifrit or Shiva) (w/ High Poly, High Res Textures, VFX).
* From a story point-of-view it's a challenge: How do you get to "control / summon" Ifrit, and yet you're fighting him repeatedly in, say, Ifrit EX to farm stuff? etc.

But ultimately, I'd say, as a Final Fantasy fan, XIV's version of a "Summoner" is *nothing* like what I equate in my mind with what "Summoners" were in past Final Fantasy games. I know it's an MMORPG, but XIV's Summoner is just a DOT-applying Job.

The DOT-casting Job could've been renamed something else and it'd be fine.

I wish XIV's "Summoner" could be revamped to be something closer to what you might expect from a Final Fantasy Summoner, within the confines of an MMORPG of course. If the actual *Summon* (Creature) is the same across all races, then making *1* special Animation (for their "Big Attack" (like PLD's Hallowed Ground, WHM's Benediction, etc.)) per Summon wouldn't be too bad. That would make it stand out (and move it away from just DOTs). Just my opinion.