Alternate Class Feature for Thaumaturgist (Core Prestige Class)

One of the characters in my group is a Cleric/Thaumaturgist, but he is not interested in the Planar Cohort he gets as a 'capping' ability. I've come up with a few alternates, and I'd like a few opinions before presenting a final solution.

As a recap, thaumaturgists get the following abilities in their first 4 levels (in addition to full spell progression):
- Improved Ally: Diplomacy check to reduce payment by half for planar ally spells.
- Augment Summoning: as feat
- Extended Summoning: Extend Spell for free on all summoning spells
- Contingent Summoning: as contingency, but only a summoning spell can be triggered

Which combination of the following would you use to complete this class feature progression?
- Summoning Status: status (or possibly greater status*) automatically on all summoned creatures
- Shielded Servants: shield other automatically on all summoned creatures
- Willing Servants: can concentrate on summoning spells as a free action [the summon (specific creature) spells in the Spell Compendium require concentration]
- Close Servants: can cast personal spells on summoned creatures at Close range.

* Greater status is a 4th-level spell in the Book of Exalted Deeds which functions like status and also allows the caster to cast harmless spells of levels 1 or 2 to those linked.

There are a bunch of minor benefits you could apply to summoned critters.

Pick a 1st or 2nd level spell, and all Summoned critters gain the benefit of that spell for the duration of their summon. Strong choices would be entropic shield or mirror image for ranged attackers, blur or barkskin for melee attackers.

Cheers, -- N

I considered something like this, but:

- the thaumaturgist is geared to clerics, so I would like to restrict the choice to cleric spells
- by the time he reaches 5th level, the thaumaturgist is at least a 12th-level caster, meaning he has access to summon monster VI, and probably won't use summon monster III or lower. In that range, you start to get outsiders with their own spell-like abilities -- including blur and mirror image

hmmm... maybe instead of specifying a low-level effect, we could let the character choose...

- Summoning Contingency: You may set up a contingency which targets either you or a summoned creature. This effect is triggered every time you cast a summoning spell and applies to all creatures you summon.