Why are summoners so neglected?

[Dyvid]

I don't know if it's been said here previously, but with regards to new summons, the biggest question would be "what will it do that the others don't already do?" Titan is a tank pet, Ifrit a melee DPS, Garuda a ranged one. Can't give them a healer pet because we run into balancing issues next. I know people really want more summons, but the last thing I'd want is more summons that don't offer anything unique.

Well ironically at work we had to go to training about problem solving. If you have a problems, you can't fix them with excuse like blaming others, limit design, simple choices. As stated above you can change it where pets are defined by AoE, Single Target, PvP, Emer Tanks, time limited, etc...
You could give each pet one or two unique skills that would encourage summon and release play style.
Another is develop a rotation style around the elemental wheel where as Shiva would fight for ___ time limit, cast Diamond Dust and placing a Primal Fire buff on the player making Fire based Egi's stronger.

The point is a creative team can make it work but just throwing your hands in the air and give up isn't a solution.