Setting aside the issue of NPCs randomly dirt kicking / whatevering your archon, I feel like part of the problem here is that your expectation of what a conjurer should be able to do (and at what relative levels of ease), regardless of whether those expectations were met in the past, is considerably different than what mine are.

I'm not ready to say I think conjurers are perfect as-is or speak with finality on Valg's change to NPC "AI" yet, but for what it's worth I do think you and I have a lot of ground between us on this one and no matter how things go you are likely to end up disappointed. The only question being how much.

On the bright side, shapeshifters are still absurdly powerful, especially for their effort-to-power ratio, so you've got a win in that one still.