It may have been discussed like 1 or 2 posts when it came out ...
... (man giggle).
Substitute Powers from the Ardent section, specifically refers to "mantles" not ardents.
Div Minds get lots of mileage out of Sub powers.
The AC thingy:
1*1=1 ppoint equivalent ... might be worth it, but I don't think so.
2*3=6 ppoint equivalent ...
retrain the ability at 3rd level, back in for 1st level aura. Gain your 5' Aura back.
Absolutely worth it. It's much more difficult to make the Aura bigger to be more useful.
or 1*5=5 ppoint and no increase in ability access.
etc on up
8*15=120 ppoint or 4*17=68 ppoint
9*17=153 ppoint
153 + the base Div Mind ppoints = better than normal 6th level casters like Bard.
But consider if you were playing a Psion and
half of your ppoints had to go to AC.
You can make a Psion that does that better. You might not want to.
You might value it higher, for the Ectopic part.
Still the old psi board figured ACs are about on par with Earth Elementals.
You can get much better summoning on the Arcane side of things.
6s to get 1/2 the 7s feels like the break point of usefulness. That's level 11.
Level 14 gets the move action aura switch + a Hustle item to improve it.
This got the all 7s AC stuff at level 13. Good enough. Get out of Div Mind.