What are your thoughts on the archetype? It seems like the intention is to move from a warrior who casts spells while engages, to a spell caster who can fight.
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Puppeteer seems designed around the Image spell line. Silent Image and its higher-level equivalents are an easy way to force everything around you to make will saves, which will likely activate charmstrike and let him get a free enchantment spell and trigger "the show must go on" so he does not need to concentrate on his image spell in subsequent rounds. It's a pretty neat, if technically complex, combo. Unfortunately, I think the archetype suffers a lot of practicality issues.
First off, there's a glaring dissonance between Charmstrike and the Image spell line. Charmstrike is a swift action and not an immediate action, meaning that it can only be activated on your own turn. However, the Image spell line only calls for a will saves when the opponent actually interacts with the illusion and not just by perceiving it. In order to reliably trigger Charmstrike you must cast your illusion such that the intended targets are immediately interacting with it; if they don't interact with it immediately, then the saving throws will likely occur on their own turn and can't activate Charmstrike. While this isn't a dealbreaker, it greatly limits your options for what kind of illusions you create and goes against the core appeal of the spell line.
The second issue is how quickly this guy burns through resources. The Puppeteer novas at an alarming rate when using charmstrike, expending two spell slots and a point of arcane pool per turn. Needless to say, you probably can't do this more than once per encounter at low levels. The loss of the ability to enhance his weapon with arcane pool leaves him without a good option if he wants more staying power than nuking power.
Thirdly, the Puppeteer has problems with numbers. He's a 6-level caster entirely dedicated to "save: will negates" spells, so a high intelligence and feats to bolster his DC's are kinda non-negotiable. On paper he can use his arcane pool as a swift action to increase the DC's of his spells, but this only exacerbates his nova issue and also has an action economy conflict with charmstrike so it can't be relied upon. On the physical side he has literally no class features to improve his physical attack but is still locked into one-handed melee weapons like a regular magus. This is a problem for a 3/4 BAB chassis and will require a larger investment in a physical stat to compensate, and likely a few extra feats. Put it all together, he's stretched a lot more thinly than a regular magus.
Fourthly, he's got nothing for enemies immune to mind-affecting spells. If you can get a prehensile tail and a lesser threnodic rod you can handle undead, but that doesn't help against the likes of constructs. With no ability to enhance his weapon and the inability to use spell combat with spells outside of the illusion and enchantment schools, he's basically an NPC class in encounters like these.
I love the flavor of this archetype, but I think it straddles the boundary of "NPC-only" material. It's not completely terrible, but it has a whole host of practicality issues that mean it will only shine in very specific kinds of campaigns.
For golems, the golembane scarab would let him ignore their DR, pretty cheap Core item.
But other constructs will be an issue, yeah.
At low levels, Charmstrike should be powered by Daze (not Image spells) as it is a cantrip (at will). But as you level the DC will be low and has a HD limit if I remember.
Puppeteer seems designed around the Image spell line. Silent Image and its higher-level equivalents are an easy way to force everything around you to make will saves, which will likely activate charmstrike and let him get a free enchantment spell and trigger "the show must go on" so he does not need to concentrate on his image spell in subsequent rounds. It's a pretty neat, if technically complex, combo. Unfortunately, I think the archetype suffers a lot of practicality issues.
First off, there's a glaring dissonance between Charmstrike and the Image spell line. Charmstrike is a swift action and not an immediate action, meaning that it can only be activated on your own turn. However, the Image spell line only calls for a will saves when the opponent actually interacts with the illusion and not just by perceiving it. In order to reliably trigger Charmstrike you must cast your illusion such that the intended targets are immediately interacting with it; if they don't interact with it immediately, then the saving throws will likely occur on their own turn and can't activate Charmstrike. While this isn't a dealbreaker, it greatly limits your options for what kind of illusions you create and goes against the core appeal of the spell line.
The second issue is how quickly this guy burns through resources. The Puppeteer novas at an alarming rate when using charmstrike, expending two spell slots and a point of arcane pool per turn. Needless to say, you probably can't do this more than once per encounter at low levels. The loss of the ability to enhance his weapon with arcane pool leaves him without a good option if he wants more staying power than nuking power.
Thirdly, the Puppeteer has problems with numbers. He's a 6-level caster entirely dedicated to "save: will negates" spells, so a high intelligence and feats to bolster his DC's are kinda non-negotiable. On paper he can use his arcane pool as a swift action to increase the DC's of his spells, but this only exacerbates his nova issue and...
My only issue with your (rather apt) analysis lies in No. 4: Undead are not immune to the "image" line of spells. The mind-affecting spells listed that they are immune to does not include figments, something most people forget. There are still issues, overall, with the archetype. However, if you're specifically looking for an Int-based Bard, this fits the bill. I only wish they let you keep some combat ability or gave more staying power as a caster. Oh, well.
My only issue with your (rather apt) analysis lies in No. 4: Undead are not immune to the "image" line of spells. The mind-affecting spells listed that they are immune to does not include figments, something most people forget.
While it's true you can still use Spell Combat to activate an Illusion spell, you can't complete the combo with Charmstrike and The Show Must Go On if nothing is vulnerable to your mind-affecting enchantment spells. This means you're stuck concentrating on that illusion every round, which will rarely be worth your time and misses out on the whole point of the archetype.
"The Show must go on" does not specify what level you gain the ability which means you gain it at 1st level, but the format seems to indicate otherwise. It is listed after an ability acquired at 2nd level.
I tend to avoid archetypes with broken text on principle.
Now aside from that, this archetype relegates you to spamming illusions and enchantments in combat. Once true-sight becomes common and DCs to being charmed or dominated become the norm, this class levels out of usefulness compared to the baseline magus.
Overall, a bard is better and may even be a better damager depending on how well the puppetmaster can pre-buff. The armor is the same. The skill average out close. But a bard is charisma based and wins out there.
The limited spell combat still works with Vanish, Color Spray or Mirror Image, so you've action economy over the bard there in melee. It's easier to hit things when you're invisible or they're stunned so you might be able to push int more than your attack stat.
Bard spells include some very nice enchantment attacks all the way up. So long as you can make them land you're good. Against undead or others immune to those? You're not so good, but you can at least use buffs and hit things.