I don't see SE giving us back proper pets. And probably will be further removed somehow. I wouldn't be surprised if the pet spells turned into bard songs, where for 15 seconds you go Ifrit mode and a couple of spells does something or procs something different. That fades and you go Titan for 15. And on and on. So SMN is probably forever dead to me, and only levels up because it is tied to SCH.