I'm the odd man out here cause I didn't use summons much at all in my first playthrough but I was burnt out on long summons after VII anyway and VIII just put the idea of cinematic summon sequences to the grave with me.

I actually found in my recent playthrough (cut short due to a scratch on Disc 3) that the magic you Junction alone isn't what really makes the game broken its the stat % abilites... Seriously, My Squall with 100 Flares junctioned to strength does 3x more damage with the Str+40% ability. He literally went from doing 2000-2500 to suddenly doing 5500+.
I kept finding myself having more fun this time by actually ignoring the statistical increase abilites and just sticking to special moves like Darkside and Devour.

The other thing I would like to point out is that early in the game having a Mag-J ability is really useful cause your draw rate is based on the Magic stat. Once you start getting the Refine abilities and Mug, you should no longer have a terribly difficult time getting magic. Only spells like Holy (which is surprisingly not as useful as you would think), Meteor, and Ultima are hard to come by but you seriously don't need them. Just use the auto junction feature to sort out the stats and just remember to occasionally use draw. Hell, it becomes even less stressful later when you can start draw/cast defensive spells from the enemies themselves and not have to worry about carrying them around. Just try to enjoy yourself and ignore power grinding.