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

[VentVanitas]

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.

Feel free to tell me what purpose Carbuncle serves and why they're needed to summon Bahamut despite contributing nothing but a shield.

What is "vapid" about it?

Aetherflow is vapid because it has no thought or strategy to using it. Press Energy Drain on cooldown, dump in buffs. No relation or cohesion to anything.

Gems are vapid because they could functionally be removed from the kit entirely and nothing would change other than visual spectacle. All it adds to the kit is giving you a different flavour of Ruin to mash, unless you want to tell me that the only three mandatory hardcasts or two melee GCDs in your rotation is suddenly a big deal. So long as it is sandwiched between the current functioning demi summons, it effectively does not matter.

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.

Do you seriously not see the problem in suggesting to make a mechanic actively worse? Why not just fucking make Aetherflow a proper mechanic again??? It's because of suggestions like these that we constantly have shit deleted from jobs and are given absolutely nothing in return.

"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.

I couldn't care less. Good job design and good job viability are not the same thing. It could be the best caster in the game for speedkills and I would still call it shit so long as it remains as it is. Monk is my main, and it being arguably one of the strongest melees in all of EW so far does not sway my opinion on it being a badly designed job. SMN is no different to me.