It is time to get rid of them SE...

[Saefinn]

Agreed. I wouldn't miss the egi if they were gone, and I hope that them being slightly de-emphasized in Shadowbringers they're inching us closer to their complete removal in the next expansion.

Summoner shouldn't be a "pet" class that has some kind of entity following them around like a dog. If you want that experience, wait for them to release the Beastmaster/tamer limited job and live out your dreams.

This is the kind of thing I was saying back in beta when SMN was announced because my vision of what a summoner should be was different. I came from a FFXI type SMN and argued they made it work there, "why this". My initial reaction to egis was that they were a terrible idea.

But it was my first DPS job in XIV as I was also levelling SCH. I liked the job a lot and I micromanaged my pets for both. So I decided that I liked the job but never considered it a true SMN and my mind changed on it and the egis grew on me. Now I understand the dilemma they face as a result of this, they can rework it to be more in line of what people expect of a summoner job but then have all those people who like the version of SMN they've already created be upset. In a way I expect this is why the job has felt a little like it has had an identity crisis because they can upset people who like what they made or upset the people who have opinions on what SMN should be and have chosen the option of "try to please both at once".
I kinda think the way they probably should have gone about it is to leave Arcanist as a completely different job, have the egis as an upgrade on Carbuncles and make Summoner into a different job. Because I legitimately like the current style of SMN, even if I think there are fixes/tweaks needed to parts of it.