Summoner doesn't feel like it Summons.

[SieyaM]

This has been pointed out at multiple points throughout this thread (and others) to be untrue; pretty much every main line game from FFX onwards (except XV) had some sort of Pet Job-esque gameplay, and the still managed to be flashy just fine. That's 20 years of History people keep ignoring.
Making Summoner a Pet job was perfectly valid based on the jobs history

I feel people tend to be too laser focused on the whole "Egi too smol" mentality, even though they could have easily traited them to be 'full' Primals within the old system just as they do now.

Everyone has their preferences, this is fine; but I don't think it's okay to keep ignoring all the times Summoning was more than just flashy aesthetic.

Even in iterations where summons acted like part members and were more present on the field, they were not always present nor were they something the summoner acted through by proxy. Old SMN was not a really good pet class anyway, it didn't offer real interaction with the pet it just allowed you to cast abilities from the pet. I tend to think of something like EverQuest magician as an actual pet class, where most of your damage was through your pet and your abilities centered around augmenting or drawing from them.