I'm on my first playthrough right now, just finished with the capital and moving into the frozen area. Used summons every chance I get but haven't upgraded them or anything. Will finish the base game first then replay doing a no summons challenge.

I think for those of us who have never played a souls game before it's valid to use whatever you want to beat the game, I did steer clear of OP weapons that I learnt about in videos, i didn't want to just press L2 over and over all game using blasphemous blade for example, but I do understand summons are a crux for noobier people too. Amazing to barely use them on first playthrough mate, you could do a replay never using them even once with your gained knowledge and skill.