Masked Koopa's extensive and detailed post
I'm sorry to say Koopa, the vast majority of what you are discussing here is way outside of the scope of this thread. Even before 1.4, you are calling to major overhauls that are just not going to fit within what I have the time to do, but even now, I'm not likely to making changes to content that weren't directly addressed in 1.4.1 anyway.
However, to respect the time you put into the post, I'd like to respond to most of your points regardless:
1. There's no way we are going to be able to rework the old melee minions to have latch-on. Not only do most of them not make sense for most of them from a logistics perspective, but its a huge AI overhaul that was never within the scope of this thread. What you are asking here might make mechanical sense from a design perspective, but it was never in the cards, I'm sorry to say.
2. Return range (What I like to call "Return to Sender" mode) is something I would have liked to look into, but my coding skills are not very high, and Summon AI is way outside of my abilities. The more competent coders have had their hands full addressing content changes and more severe bug fixes, so this was not something that was able to be brought into the review.
3. Most minions will phase into blocks when they enter Return to Sender mode, just not when on a "normal" follow behavior. I think that's fine, though I'll acknowledge that its annoying when a Melee minion gets stuck on a block.
4. Further review of DD turrets is something I would have liked to do. I did not have time to do so. I hope my attention paid to improving the armors, and a great number of the other weapons from the event, partly make up for that.
5. IMO, in an ideal world, I'd totally rework the Celestial-into-Moon Lord Summoner weapon progression. I wish Moon Lord dropped a real summon. But summons are not easy to add, they take 10x the work of other weapons, and an end-game summon even moreso. I made some adjustments to Rainbow Crystal Staff that, in my opinion, make a big difference. Public perception has not quite agreed with that. It is now at a point where minor adjustments will no longer cut it, it requires a rework, and I'm not capable of reworks to that level. And so there is not much else I could do. I could theoretically just do damage buffs, but I'm not sure how I feel about that right now.
6. I've asked for increased turret cap for Stardust Armor before. It was denied. Sorry to say, it was something I wanted.
7. I do not agree that Tempest Staff needs a homing projectile. It was, once upon a time, a highly viable summon weapon, and only lost value in light of the superior Xeno Staff and its upgrades from the Celestial pillars. I did attempt to narrow the gap between it and Xeno, with a buff for it and a nerf for Xeno. I don't see much more of an increase coming there, as I do not feel that Tempest Staff is an inferior weapon.
8. Fun fact about Xeno Staff . . . in all of my testing of Empress, literally every single tier-appropriate test run I ever did, do you know my fastest kill? Summoner gear with Xeno Staff. Faster than melee, faster than mage, faster than ranger. I used to underestimate Xeno Staff, but once I re-evaluated it, I was in awe at its sheer value. They basically teleport onto the enemy, cannot miss, and hit constantly. Its nerf was not huge, it was rather mild, all things considered, and not one meant to completely remove it from the meta. Ostensibly, Xeno Staff and Tempest Staff come from the same tier (post-Golem side activities).
9. Your assumption about Spooky Armor is sorta half right It is meant to occupy a post-Golem spot, which is to say, the same tier as Beetle (sorta) but but strictly not the same as Shroomite and Spectre, which are pre-Golem. I think its offensive value over Tiki make up for it. Furthermore, I'll also indicate that it took four years of asking for me to be allowed to buff Spooky as much as I did. I don't believe I'll be able to get more buff out of it.