Eh, what you describe sounds like what Survival was around Cataclysm. Just with magic stuff instead of the explosives/poisons that the spec used.
Honestly, if they were to give hunter a different type of spec, I’d much rather they get a support role like evokers. I don’t really care about any class/spec I play being necessary or w/e, but I can definitely see them expanding that to more classes.
That’s the way it is now. All those ideas for pets sound fine, but I’d be happy if we could just respec them like we could in Legion (or was it WoD?). Wolves are already better tanks than turtles because of the leech from being Ferocity, which just feels wrong.