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I like the changes suggested by Jason but I think losing the standard action summon could prove overly detrimental to a summoner. The biggest drawback for summoned spells is their cast time of 1 full round. It locks out the options for the summoner for the whole round and offers little diversion from that. Its also not very reactive to a situation since the summoned creature doesn't appear till next round. Quicken spell is an option for a conjurer but for a summoner and his reduced spell progression its not an option at all until very high level.
Personally I been wondering how to make the summoner better than a conjurer and I think I have an idea...
Firstly the spell progression
1 - Summon Monster II
2 - Summon Monster III
3 - Summon Monster IV
4th level ability - instant summon: The summoner can cast a summon monster spell as a standard action. If cast as a standard action the summon monster spell uses up a spell slot 1 level higher than its actual level.
10th level ability - metamagic summoner: The summoner reduces the level cost of metamagic feats he applies to any summon monster spell to a minimum of +1 level per metamagic feat applied.
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I first thought about making SM I a cantrip but that would be too abusive I think so I dropped this idea.
The metamagic summoner I'm also not 100% ok with but I think this has potential maybe as a specific feat (perhaps releasing other feats for bards specialising in enchantments or specialist wizards and metamagic feats). The principle idea behind this ability is to make metamagic feats viable to classes with reduced spell lists, making them less flexible than a standard metamagic feat by restricting it to certain spells (or perhaps to a specific subschool?).
Thoughts