A friend of mine is a 75 SMN (and 75 BLM). He leveled SMN similarly to your friends, forming his own PTs so that he could actually summon. He ocassionally had to break down and main heal because people pretty much refused to PT with him.

After leveling his BLM he realized that he was able to get into more standard PTs. These PTs generally had better players and not just the scraps that were desperate for invites. Playing it your own way will definitely slow you down.

I think this update will seriously benefit SMN and make it on par for some of these better PTs. I honestly think it has been gimped until now and this is a great thing they have done. But, knowing the playerbase in regard to other changes from the past, this update probably won't mean much.

When RNG was nerfed it was IMMEDIATELY shunned. When SE destroys a job everyone jumps on quickly. But no matter how much DRG has been buffed up and no matter how much DRK has been buffed up... people won't let go of their preconceptions. I don't see that trend changing for SMN.