[Blitz]

He also starts with a high dominion, which is a point discount if you compare him to a lot of other SCs.

To a lot of others, yes... but not in comparison to the Virtue (4), and POD (3). It is higher than the phoenix (2), so maybe I might have mentioned it I suppose.

Starting with F3 is also going to give him a huge discount if you want to make him a fire bless *and* an SC (entirely feasible).

Yup he's the cheapest fire 9 blessing. Nobody disputes that. However, similar to the shedu (but obviously not as bad), having to tow around an army is very limiting, and often eliminates his 3-flying strategic move. My point was that making him a SC is prohibitively expensive. He will remain in the fire-9 blessing niche even without the imps. Using him as a thug is possible now, and since thugs aren't meant to solo, the imp problem is small. The option to spend outrageous points to make him a SC should probably be there, however. The imp bug shouldn't be the limiting factor here.

Lastly, when you are balancing, you can't aim for the top of the power curve or you will get balance inflation. How many of the available pretenders would be better but, also, how many would be worse ?

That's the point

I like the Moloch, I don't like his imps however, but the Imps do not make the Moloch 'useless' in any role other than a Blessing Strategy. It only makes him at current inflexible in his SC role early in the game (which is where SC's are most valuable).

AFAIK it is not the intention of IW to keep the battlesummon creatures routable as they are and finding the reasons why and modifying them to the vision of IW to work how they see them is in progress. That is the only answer that I can give you with any assurity.

I agree with all of this.