Whilst I never got to play FFXI, I do agree with the general sentiment here. Summoner was my first choice for job in FFXIV, until I learned more about them. I was very disappointed. I really like their current playstyle, but they really don't feel like summoners at all. I know we can't have full size summons roaming the battlefield as it would be mayhem, but I would love to see some long cast time summoning spells more akin to traditional FF summoning. Summon Shiva, have her pop out and do diamond dust then disappear. It would look spectacular, would feel like a summoner (which is exactly what I wanted in the first place) and they could have easily designed the class around that style of gameplay. I hope they do something different with this, at least.