SE, don't overthink Summoner 7.0. Just give people what they want. Just do it.

[Renathras]

I will be happy with SMN once it's an actual job that doesn't have or fixes its vapid, disconnected pseudo-mechanics like Gem Summons and Aetherflow. I will be happy with SMN when it actually has more depth to it than a goddamn puddle. It does not need to be old SMN. I just want SMN to be good, and adding more insipid Gems that don't add or change literally a single thing to the job does not achieve that.

Okay, let's dig into this.

How are its mechanics "disconnected"? Old SMN was far MORE disconnected. DWT and Bahamut had no relation. FBT had no relation to Bahamut. The ARR Green Mage "filler" phase had no connection to any of the others other than ensuring you had 4 stacks of Ruin 4 when you went into Bahamut and using Tri-disaster before DWT/FBT to get the free refresh.

The current one flows directly Demi, Summon x3, Demi, Summon x3.

What is "vapid" about it?

The only mechanic that is disconnected is still having Aetherflow, honestly. They could just put Painflare on a 60 sec CD and have it proc Ruin 4, balance both for the single target damage ED+3x Festers do right now, and "The last remnants, of the old [Summoner], have been swept away." -Tarkin.

It's the easiest Job in the game, but that's not really a problem since there are plenty of hard Jobs people can play instead if they want hard Jobs, and it's healthy for a game to have a range of difficulties across its varied classes. A game of only hard classes tends not to last long, and a game of all "medium difficulty" classes (can "medium" have meaning if there are no "easy" and "hard" to compare to?) ends up feeling very same-y and boring. Hell, they even made RDM a bit harder (to optimize) this expansion vs last one.

"I just want SMN to be good" - SMN is, as of this writing, the most used Caster in TOP Ultimate clears, including part of the pair (BLM/SMN) of the only dual Caster clear.

Let that sink it. It IS "good", otherwise that wouldn't be happening. It does more damage than RDM while still bringing some of its utility and not requiring the party to optimize around it like BLM. Very clearly, SMN is "good", both in objective performance and in subjective evaluation by a good chunk of the community, including world first Ultimate raid teams.

Take SMN behind the barn and treat it like Old Yeller

They did that in 6.0...

And kind of for that reason: They said there wasn't any place they could think of going with Old SMN/new things to add. Old SMN was a mess of tacked on and repurposed systems. Its Filler phase was almost entirely its ARR systems, its DWT was HW, Bahamut was SB (and worked different depending on if you were under or above level 70 in terms of if you needed 2x DWTs to get into it or not), and FBT was ShB. Things just kept being tacked on, and it had become a total mess that, oddly, somehow still WORKED, but they had no idea where else to go with it, what else to tack on, that would still work and not break it, and they were already shoehorning things into other things, like ARR's Egi-Assaults (now GCDs) generating Ruin 4 stacks to maximize Bahamut Wyrmwaves and HW and ShB's DWT/FBT refreshing SB's Tri-Disaster used in ARR's Filler phase!

It was an abject mess of a Job held together by duct tape, hope, and hours of theorycrafter simulations.

Current summoner isn't a summoner. You don't summon something to have it fight with you. Titan, Garuda, and Ifrit all pop out and go away.

Have you ever played a FF game before FF10?

I don't mean this as a slight, but FFX was the first FF game where Summons fought on the field - in place of, not alongside, their Summoner. I believe FF13 is the only Final Fantasy to date where Summons fought in the field alongside their Summoner. (Maybe FF11, never played it so not sure how it worked). FF4, Rydia's Summons came, did their attack, and left. FF5's Summoner Job worked that way. FF6's Magecite Summons worked that way. FF7's Summon Materia worked that way. FFTactics (the original and the War of the Lions remake) Summons were called in, did their thing (had a wide area field effect), and then left. FF8's Guardian Forces worked that way (with a short arrival time where they could be KO'd preventing the attack and with the Boost mechanic where you could increase their damage potential). FF9's Summons (both Garnet's and Eiko's) came, did their attack, and left.

FFX was the first time a Summon stayed on the field. They didn't fight "alongside" the party (or even the Summoner), as Yuna, while standing to the side, took no actions and wasn't targetable during the duration, so it's like she wasn't even there. FF12's Summons were the first iteration of a Summon taking the field WITH the Summoner (and party), and fighting along with them. FF13 performed a hybrid of the two, with the Summons arriving and fighting with the Summoner (though controlled by the AI) then combining with the Summoner for their finishing attacks. The rest of the party, I believe, was dismissed for the Summon period. [EDIT: Looking up FF11, it looks like their Summons also worked like FF12, with one of two flavors, Summon Avatars proper and then Elemental Spirits which were AI controlled entirely outside of the SMN's hands, but had access to the "Ancient [Element]" tiers of magic spells.]

FF15 was again, in spectacular fashion, the Summon arriving, doing their big attack, and then leaving.

So by your definition, the only real Summoners in all of Final Fantasy history were...Summons in FF12 [and FF11]? MAYBE FF13 and FF10 if we're being extra generous?

That's a pretty narrow definition...especially since, other than Yuna, the FF12 and FF13 casts were never considered "Summoners" while many of the earlier ones (FFTactics Job, FF5 Job, FF4's Rydia, FF9's Garnet and Eiko) all were actually defined as being Summoners. [FF11 Summoners seem to actually be the only Summoners in FF history that work the way you're trying to define all Summoners.]

The current summoner feels more akin to a "Channeler" class which I would be totally fine with if it was a different class.

That's more or less what Summoners have always been in Final Fantasy.

Old SMN felt less like a Summoner and more like a "Green Caller" to me. A Green Mage with a slim selection of support Summons. [Color] Caller, in FF terms, means [Color] Mage with a few less magic spells and a small selection of Summons, sorta like how a Red Mage is to a Black Mage + White Mage. Eiko in FF9 could be defined by some as a White Caller since she was a bit more the game's White Mage (Garnet didn't have access to Holy, Eiko did) and had 4 Summons, two of which (Carbuncle and Phoenix - which had a chance of auto-summoning if the party was wiped out to prevent a wipe) are support/healing focused, one other, Madeen, is the game's only Holy element Summon, and her Trance ability was Double White as opposed to Garnet's Eidolon, which focuses more on her Summons (they are invoked as a "counter attack" while she's in Trance and ones invoked via Eidolon have a chance of randomly appearing in battle, and she also has a higher chance of getting the full animation Summon, which does more damage), and her Summon pool is also wider and includes the more traditional Summons, like Ifrit, Shiva, and Bahamut, including the most powerful one in the game, Ark, which did Darkness damage type instead of Madeen's Holy.

.

I liked Old SMN for what it was - a Green Caller - but New SMN is actually much more like a traditional Final Fantasy Summoner than Old SMN was, and even mixes all the past Summoner forms together, having "fire and forget" SMNs like Rydia, Garnet, Eiko, FF5 and FFT Jobs, and the Magecite/Materia/GF summoning systems, while also having the "fights alongside you" Bahamut/Phoenix Summons, which is more like the FFX, FF12, and FF13 summoning systems. It's got it all.

I will never get tired of writing, carbuncle should be a separate entity from the other summons that can be present simultaneously with them, that has the role of supporter, enriching it with support functions that provide for its correct positioning like shields, buff, heal and other support stuff for example rescue for you or party memeber. This way you are in full control of your summon, without incurring stupid AI.

Agree with this. Considering at least the three "lesser" Summons are all "appear, blast, leave", and basically just a really fancy SFX "spell animation", there's really no reason for them to interact with Carby in any way. You could make some argument about Bahamut or Phoenix, but not for the other three.