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

[MonsutaMan]

Lore be damned....

Shinryu

[Vinal211]

Lore be damned....

Shinryu

Shinryu's the one you point out above all others?

nah i kid i kid (and if you weren't saying it insultingly then i apologize for misreading it). i understand the reasoning, but at the same time that logic would restrict us even from Ramuh, Levi, and Shiva. SMN Lore is that anyone, no matter their reserves, can have at most 3 primals "imprinted" upon their soul to be able to be summoned. iirc you can technically remove one from your soul and use that slot for another, but in early HW story we attempt the ritual for one of the other elemental summons, but don't receive anything, even though we got "washed" in their respective. then we discover the Allagans developed the ability of "Trancing" to get around it, internalizing the aether instead of sending it outward as an Egi. but then we proceed to turn that Trance into a Demi-summon of Bahamut (thanks to everyone in the world basically getting touched by the thing when it got blown the fuck up.), technically giving us 4 summons. then out of nowhere, in ShB, we start Trancing and eventually Demi-Summoning Phoenix (also explained in the binding coil raid with Louisoix turned Phoenix letting himself return to just pure aether to heal the land, and subsequently the people.)

Consider what we've been doing since day 1 of our journey as a Scion. finding summoned primals and killing them. every single time, they return to pure aether, and we are subsequently "washed" in it. not even just the elemental summons. Moggle Mog is an ARR primal, not part of the elemental set, yet it would still count as the series Moogle Summon for XIV. every primal in HW, we murder and get washed in its aether (I'm not exactly sure for alexander, but we did dissolve Big Al Prime so...). KoTR is a candidate as well. all the primals in SB? killed, washed in their aether. no matter what Shinryu's pelting us with tons of different aether during the fight, and the main body had to disperse SOMETHING when it dissipated. hell you can make an argument that the Lightwardens of ShB were primals, at the very least Titania, and they could be summoned as well if we so wished. to say nothing of what we accomplish in EW...

So where does that lead us? they say we can only "imprint" three primals on our soul...but they don't say that it's locked to three primals period. they could easily write it off as the WoL, badass sarcastic mute extraordinaire, realizing that trancing separate powerful primals lets them summon "lesser" primals that aren't Ifrit, Titan, Garuda and Bahamut. that lets them open up expansion for SMN into various different routes of reworks and improvements, and doesn't limit them to what we have right now.

but that still comes with them even realizing that and capitalizing on it...

[Renathras]

Lore be damned....

Shinryu

8.0 capstone ability for the next Demi- once the 3 min meta is introduced and we meet Zenos' ghost and find he really cared for us the entire time and lets us absorb his aether for some pivotal event, after which SMNs can summon him as a Demi. There ya go.

EDIT:

I retain my view that it is fundamentally unworkable and the only solution is returning to the drawing board entirely.

Disagree, it works fine and is actually a ton of fun to play. I don't think it's "unworkable" nor "fundamentally" so. I think it's more you'd just like something else instead of it, not that the Job ITSELF has problems, much less unworkable ones.