I wouldn't go that far, it just happened to have come up on one of the pages I was looking things up for armor stuff on.
I could see that. I honestly might keep it anyway under creative license because as much as I hate to say I got attached to a meaningless mechanic like serrated armor messing up armor, I totally got attached to it. Or maybe not. I'll keep thinking on it.
They were kind of meant to invoke that (because I kind of thought it was a good concept even if it needed some work), and I do agree that it seems like they'd be restrictive at first but that's what the Methods are for (it's absolutely my attempt to rescue one of the few things I've enjoyed about the few 4e games I've played). Let's take your War Wizard/Peace Cleric as an example.
This is absolutely not something possible at low levels, naturally. You'd need at least two levels in Wizard and at least one level in Cleric. And with the breadth of things you mentioned doing, you're probably what, level 5 overall? Let's call it level 5 for ease. That's 25% of the way through the maximum level of any one class in DnD, even if most campaigns don't make it that far and even if it's spread across two classes. Keep that 25% in mind.
In Archetype, you get a new Method (or a deeper Method) every five levels and a chance for a new Archetype every ten. Call it level 10, so you've got three Methods (level 1, level 5, and level 10) and two Archetypes. Double Caller could work, or Caller/Hammer, depending on how often you actually intend on waltzing yourself into actual melee range. More than doable. If your level 1 Method was Ranged Magic or Evocation Magic or Elemental Magic, you can spam one-Act bolts of fire/ice/lightning from the back or throw up walls of stone, fire, or wind with no issues. That's two of your mentioned functions covered without a single level-up. But lets say you got tired of spamming spells and hit level 5, so you take your second Method as Summoning or Combat Magic. Whichever you take, take the other at level 10 alongside your new Archetype.
Now I know that seems like a long time to wait, but the first ten levels of Archetype go really fast. It's not intended to be an arduous journey, though numerically it seems that way because I forgot to mention the maximum level of Archetype: 50. Level 10 is only 20% through the total progression of a single character.
It's the end of the tutorial, essentially. I'm anticipating a lot of campaigns starting at level 10, just like a lot of DnD campaigns start at level 5.
This was probably my fault for not explaining fully, but I promise, the variation is there, especially with custom spell creation.
Also, I've changed a few things: Racial Statistics are now Origin Statistics and you now get 15 Skills instead of 10 (the bonus 5 get chosen by your TM).