Some great ideas here.
1- I really like this IF the devs stop neglecting soul generation and retroactively balance the summoning troops accordingly. I would think that troops that summon on cast would all have to also generate souls (with the interesting side effect of not being able to summon on their first cast).
2 - Could work if it doesn’t mess up Giant Spider too much (it really benefits from magic link; EDIT - I had Spider’s traits all wrong, I could dig stealthy being swapped for Big or Venomous; of course then it would only be fair to offer refunds for Giant Spider, since most people will want it to not be stealthy a la Bandit).
3 - I’m against removing the bless or death marks from L&D, which define the faction. I’m 50-50 on getting rid of the enchant affix - it’s what lets L&D teams get away with subpar mana generation (somewhat uniquely), but I don’t think L&D is an overpowered weapon in general. I think the random unearned summoning is stupid and unfun to play against, not the weapon.
4 - This is a creative solution, but I worry it’s too much of a gimp of Orbweaver, a really mediocre class otherwise. The main value of summons are as a comeback mechanic, and it would be weird for Orbweaver to lose its summons at the exact time it needs them most.