devilmaykickass stats and etc. came up shortly before you posted, it's a very large part of VIII's GF system. Obviously summoning would win the battle quicker than anything else for people who are only relying on summons, they aren't using anything else!
Ummm yes, I know all about the "stats" coming up, but my point is, that is not the topic of the thread.........it is "whats the best/worst SUMMONING system" not "Whats the best/worst summoning/stat/ability/level up system". But I guess it is and I just don't comprehend text properly....ohh well. But summoning systems have nothing to do with learning abilities, gaining stats, and the like....its what the SUMMONS do, and if you've ever played an FF game, and been in a battle, you would of noticed a command that reads "summon". With this command you can summon various creatures of sorts to come help you in some way durning battle. But, evidently I am playing different games with the same titles.

8's was pretty good as well. That one comes in second. 4, 5 and 9 where okay. 6 and 7 were the worst because you could only summon them once. Although I like the way 6 and 8 used them for other things besides summoning.
Once again, this was supposed to be about the summoning system, not the actual "summons" themselves in any other way (or atleast thats what I gathered). And once again, I am playing different versions of these games with the same titles.....the FF7 that I played, and still play, and have played through 50+ times, and have done just about everything on, that isn't the case. I can summon my Choco/mog, Ifrit, Shiva, Kjata, Hades, KotR, Ramuh, and all the others much more than just once...there is a limited amount, which rises as you level each summons' materia up, that number rises, until the materia has been mastered, then the only limit on how many times you can summon them is your MP (which was very cool.....you had to earn the amount of times you could call them unlike others *COUGH*FF8*COUGH*), and then your MP still restrained you from cheeseing the game off.

But thats just the game that I call FF7. Apparently its not what everyone else calls FF7...heh.