Exceptional Supports should have been uniques

So, after toying with some and reading about all exceptional supports i have to say, this new system is way worse than Awakened gems

Note: these effects/skills are FUN, no denying. I am not going to touch the 'fun' aspect here.

What makes this worse than Awakeneds or in fact all other supports is their extremely narrow, almost build-on-rails design (POE2 anyone?)

Bar the few 'old' designs like greater multi proj, cascade, multistrike (that i exclude from further discussion) and the like, every other support is applicable to very narrow, very specific builds and is completely, 100% useless to everyone else.
Support gems in most cases might not be OPTIMAL but they will still work, provide you with benefit. might be the best 6th link or whatever

Exceptional gems like Hex Toad or Bloodsoaked Banner fit precisely one build and one build only. that is very obvious when most descriptions start with a line that narrows down the build to like .5% of a spectrum 'supports melee attacks that ignite', 'support warcries you use yourself', 'support sentinel minions' etc

there is little experimentation, pretty much no universal utility, and the gem is good or bad based on the numbers. if it is not good enough for the target build then it wont be used in any other, because other builds are incompatible with it in the first place

I see it as a pretty big fiasco of this new system, it is a - in my opinion FAILED - copy of POE2 system, where supports are pre-made for particular skills and your only creative input is the order of supports on the gem screen.

But. the effects themselves are cool.

Turn them into uniques. Add these effects to some god-forsaken garbage uniques this game is full of - Pyre could go well with Dyadus, Hextoad with Chalice of Horrors, Voidstorm with any of the HORRIBLE unique quivers etc etc

because these effects are cool, strong and in some cases build defining (bloodsoaked banner). Some are TOO strong (Annihilation, Void Shockwave), some are meh - but in general - most of them are worthy of keeping.

Two birds, one stone - move them to garbage uniques. De bloat the game