What I think arcanist/summoner will be

[Babydoll]

Kind of hoping they go a route similar to Aion where different summons had different uses. Earth focused on defense/HP, Fire focused on attack, Wind focused on speed and Water focused on magic.

Read my mind lol I was thinking the same thing! Aion Spiritmaster was awesome and fun to play =D I could see them doing this with the FF summons. There is so many and many elements to choose from ^^

[Niqote]

the text LITERALLY SAID ...

"USING MAGICKED gemstones uphon wihch the selfsame symbols are graven, arcanist are also albo to summon forth the ephemeral being Carbuncle to carry out their bidding"

I don't much like the ephemeral... basically it tells us we can't have him follow us around unlimited (mostly) like in FFXI? Hopefully he is not like a spell cast, and just pops to do his job then disappears ^^

I loved having bouncy Carby follow me around hehe ^^

[Naraku_Diabolos]

I had written out a character once, long time ago, that drew on a 'mantle' of different Eikon's, surrounding himself in their essence basically and being able to channel their power through himself, like a medium. I could honestly see SMN doing something similiar..

The SMN calls on Ifrit's soul.. a shadowy image of Ifrit appears, overlaying your own character, albiet smaller in scale possibly and so the SMN can call out abilities and a special move provided by the Eikon at that time before it falls away again.

Leaving the 'Real' Primal available only to the FC's that defeat the Primal in battle and then can call on it before it returns to its free roaming state, as described before. That way SMN's can continue to use the 'essence of Ifrit' while FC's and still use the 'real' Ifrit in combat.

That would be the Morpher job, a la Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.