Well to be honest, why would anyone choose the hard way? most of the time is because they dont have a summoner army to do stuff the easier way.
We have a group of people that likes to do it without using SMN's but that's only because we have people who actually enjoy playing instead of just collecting shiny trophies.
But the problem here comes down to you or the people that think like you that think playing smn (or pets jobs for the matter, i still remember the witch hunts against bst) dont enjoy the game somehow.
I can play the game as a frontline DD, support or a pet class and enjoy the game the same way, smn happens to have a wild card with AC burn for some events but that's it and im cool with people wanting to do things melee style, pet or magic burst but this witch hunt against people using XX strat is getting old.
In my case for example, after the third aeonic i was pretty much done but i stuck with the people i was doing it with because i enjoyed my time with them regardless of MB strat, melee or AC, when you are cool with your static that's when you enjoy the game.
And dont forget this game is about progress and collect "shinies" or else these people you mention that "enjoy playing" will be playing on 1 of those pirate servers with lv75 cap.