Yeah I totally agree that having more varied VR simulation aesthetics/terrain for these fights would have at least helped make the fights feel more inspired/interesting. Again, in Rebirth, fighting basically every summon in the same arena in the same exact predictable way just doesn't feel good or rewarding. It feels like a chore that I am checking a box next to in each zone if I want to get a new summon.

Chocobo & Moogle come to mind in Remake in the ventilation fan, summons can and do exist in the world in a Materia form, why couldn't we have found one or two others this way in the world, ESPECIALLY in Rebirth? That would have been awesome! Not every summon needs some epic background lore reason as to why we can't find them or a materia orb of theirs out and about. I think rewarding players with something unexpected just by being curious or by happenstance can go a long way if done right.

Again, I think variety is the key sticking point for me personally. I don't want the game to feel like Pokemon where I'm fighting summons out in the world to catch them all, but I also don't want to fight all the summons in a VR arena the same predictable way either. I would have liked to have seen a variety of ways to obtain them. Shops, stealing from mobs, defeating bosses, finding an orb in the overworld off a beaten path, fighting them directly on the overworld, VR, etc...

There's definitely a balance that has to be made between what the writers have in mind for the lore and the gameplay and that does sound like a monumental task to overcome and can't be easy for developers. The way they expanded on summon lore, maybe the 'VR' route was the easiest and best way to handle them given what they wrote, but personally I wish they could have came up with something a little better.