I thought people might be exaggerating about SMN

[Madoka]

I like it. It’s not perfect but it feels the closest it’s ever been to what an actual FF summoner is. Dot Mage in ARR may have felt a bit more complex but it’s not what a summoner should be.

SMN has never had one single identity over the entire history of FF as they almost always had another job class. In 5 you got to choose that sub job, in 3 there are actually two summoning jobs. The actual summoner and the Evoker (and technically sage but it's the omnicaster). XIV's summoner has actually always been closer to Evoker from 3, than any other SMN in the series with the mixed usage of damage and support skills. Maybe they should have just called it Evoker to start with and people wouldn't have been getting upset over it for a decade. Or people could have just accepted that it was another new incarnation of the job, like all previous ones. I don't see people crying about Sage not knowing every white and black magic spell in XIV afterall.