SMN was my main since I started in SB and that is where I fell in love with the job. I have always liked summoning in FF games. Yuna was my favorite FF character when growing up! That said, I never understood ppl who said that ff14 old smn didn't feel like a real FF smn. To me, FF14 smn was its own thing, but was a smn no matter what. It felt good working up to baha and getting him, it felt so rewarding to do so and it felt amazing to see him ark moan. Now tho...you don't have to work at all to get your summons and none of them feel impactful, they more or less just buttons you press off cooldown now and there's nothing special. I get the same feel from pressing one of these summon buttons as I do pressing another jobs filler buttons, nothing. I get it, old smn wasn't about summoning all the time, but that's what made summons feel special and earned. Now when you summon Titan or Gardura, it feels like nothing because you see it so many times throughout fights.

Also to the comment above me, the LAST thing summon needs is the ability to "glam" the summons into other FF summons. That would add nothing to the job what so ever and just continue the theme of new smn being just a flashy light show that plays itself. I want the job to feel rewarding again, and I want the summons to feel like they make an impact on the fight and not just some filler spells you press and don't earn. As OP said, SB smn was peak IMO and ShB smn was great as well. The devs killed smn for most of its playbase in EW with its souless rework in hopes to get more players to play it. Yeah, it worked, but at the cost of the soul and core of the job.