this is not about shamans. at all.

aside from that, i think they need to add more skills, picking a pet should be a semi-difficult choice, and one based on what the pet can do not just how they look. take warlocks, they have 4 pets (5 with talents), the pet they use depends on their situation (lets not forget that they can switch them whenever they want give 10 sec to summon (less with talents). they dont choose their pets simply because one looks better than another, if they did we'd see succubus all over the place.

sure, there are differences amonst hunter pets, but not all that much, not the way warlocks have it with a different pet for completely different situations (tanking, anti-caster, cc/dps, support). i personally feel that growl and cower should be given for all pets without taking up any of their active skill slots and be given skills for the 4 slots they have now. crabs and turtles could get something having to do with their armor, bears and boars could get something that increases health momentarily, bears boars and ravagers could get a bleed, spiders a web that triggers when a mob runs away via the chat log, scorpions get different kinds of poisons, fliers get the swoop thats already in game, cats could get a pounce, hyenas a shout similar to wolves but with a debuff to the mob instead of a buff to party members, etc

so yea they should support hunter pet diversity :)