It hurts that my boy feels so lacklustre. I kept trying to take him out on missions but he's slow, weak and brittle. He's in desperate need of a major overhaul. Nowadays all I really use him for is linking in chat and wandering around hubs.
I don't have access to the subsume thing (I keep taking breaks from this game for other things. Only 2286 hours), but I reckon if you're stripping out his abilities for those of another frame to make him viable... just play another frame.