Lot to unpack here so lets hit it point by point (had to cut down some of your post for the main points tho)

Quote Originally Posted by Cabalabob View Post
Oh yeah and let’s not forget those famous parts where Yuna and Rydia started using meteor strike and dashing into melee range with their fire charge for the next 30 seconds after summoning ifrit to do his one move...
I mean if you want to be pedantic sure, but if they only used JUST Rydia and Yuna's moves that would make for one boring as hell summoner. Of course other things need to be brought into supplement that. Lets also not forget that the trailer for FF16, a project Yoshi-P is very much involved in, showed the protagonist doing physical attacks enhanced with the power of the summon. So if you really want it traced to another mainline title, there ya go. But even then, parts of this new Summoner would need to be unique to 14, not a 100% copy of other games. I only listed Yuna and Rydia because their mechanics were similar.

That is my issue with this new design. The thing I’ve hated most about SMN since HW has been trance. It was a bandaid fix for the janky pet AI to put all the focus on the caster. They started to move away from that with demi summons and I was happy with that...
This is a lot of conjecture here, for many summoner players, trance mage Heavensward and Stormblood Summoner is there favorite iteration of the job (this also brings up one of the biggest issues with any proposed summoner rework, which is that the summoner player base has never been very unified in what it wants), and I don't think I ever saw the dev team come out and say, "Yeah we are having trouble with pets, so here's a whole new mechanic so we hope y'all forget about em." And I don't know how you can say they were moving away from trances, when instead many people were advocating for the Dreadwyrm trance system to get the same treatment as the Firebird Trance system. And It looks like that is what happen.

But the rework has gone in the complete opposite direction and put all the focus back on the caster. The pet is only there for a second followed by the summoner doing all the work while his carbuncle literally sits and watches.
You quoted me yet ignored my biggest point on why I think they didn't do it. They have tried for now what is only two years short of a decade to make the pet system in this game work, and have failed miserably on every single attempt. Pet's in this game are jank. They're borked. Screwed. Awful. I would LOVE a proper pet system in this game but I stopped trusting the dev team to ever give one somewhere around the Stormblood rework. That's why so many players were asking for it's removal and are glad to see that Carby sitting there doing nothing.

Why couldn’t these new primals just work similar to demi primals?...
I mean they probably absolutely could, but to me at least that would very much cheapen the power and rush of bringing out Bahamut and Phoenix. Summoner has always been about having a burst and when you play a burst class you're supposed to be building up to big moments where you unleash your most powerful abilities. Making them like Demi's would just make Summoner feel more like Black Mage, a more steady consistent damage dealer. Which there is nothing wrong with that, but I don't think that was their aim. Plus also there is the whole Bahamut/Phoenix have always been treated as special summons in the Final Fantasy lore, in XIV especially.

In the end my issue is one of aesthetics and you can argue that it’s a minor gripe, but aesthetics are important...
I agree entirely, aesthetics are extremely important. Why I feel that SE really dropped the ball on adding the extra genders for Hrothgar and Viera originally, on the lack of their hats and hairstyles, adding new primal and raid weapons for the new jobs, and also on just overall more character creation options entirely. But one big thing about aesthetics is they are all a personal preference. To me this Summoner has maybe the best aesthetics of any of the jobs out there, and judging by the largely extremely positive reaction most fans are giving it on social media, many feel the same. I'm not saying your dislike of it is invalid, I'm just saying they went another way on the aesthetics, but they definitely in no way ignored them. If anything they put serious work into them.