What do you think of Souls? (enemy)

Personally after play several levels with souls in them, I'm becoming annoyed.
I'm annoyed that souls are in Spiral Knights as a feature that will never get removed.
They are in 2 danger missions and the one place for Vanguards to get rads in Missions.
Sometimes they lag spawn/stick onto your knight and explode without a means to defend yourself.
Sometime they appear and just explode.
If you try to dispatch them with swords, they explode when they are small.
They also explode in your face when they are big.
Gunning them is a waste of time because the spawn infinitely.
They do normal damage and blast through 5* armor.
Even though Ancient Plate Armor can tank hits, they usually come with status effects so your still screwed.
They don't stop spawning, so you can never take a break to talk or whatever.
OOO decided Heart of Ice and Ghost in the Machine was too easy with 4 party enemy buffs and popped those in.
Too me these enemies are just one of those "add instant difficulty, just add souls". But that is brainless and strategy less difficulty.
Some of the layouts in the core can be brutal as is.
What are your opinions?

They make it a pain to communicate with allies.....
Not to mention the various bugs on them just seem like a cheap way to lose HP.... I'd be a little less critical if they did some minor damage to enemies when you kill them.

An enemy that spawns indefinitely and grants no reward is an enemy not worth fighting.

Depends on the location.
The idea is fine, there's not much of a problem with the enemy itself. (Not saying there are no problems. There very much are problems with them.)
But in some places, they just shouldn't be there.

In principle, I don't mind them. I always carry a gun like a Blaster or an Antigua, so I can just peck them with a stray shot.
What I do mind is being unable to type while they are present. I have to signal allies to defend me for a few seconds, whenever I need to reply to a someone.

Souls are bs, but it could be worse: just think what those four missions would be like if there were as many souls as in that T1 mission.

Souls are kind of like weaker mini monsters. They get destroyed by bombs and effectively annoy anyone who doesn't have a bomb in their party.
Themselves, souls aren't too bad. The "getting stuck to you" thing is because souls can be pushed, so if you switch direction while they're stuck to you they'll get unstuck.
My only issue is that they explode in swordies' faces. I suppose this is to shift the meta a bit more away from swords, but with the gunner update guns and swords both became pretty equal in terms of power output, making guns more favorable in levels with souls.
I will say that souls are a good difficulty addition. They act as a level obstacle, and require you to keep moving. I will say that it is an issue when you're trying to type to someone, but my solution to that would be have more areas set as a "no spawn zone" for souls in levels where they are active, while adding more "spawn zones" to levels in general. Heck, having shock souls spawn in the final fight against the big iron would solve pretty much everything wrong with that fight, as long as they didn't spawn too many in at a time.
Souls are great at countering most of the common tactics we have for the game - charge attacks root you in place for a bit and if you're not attacking, souls can sneak up on you. Only real issues with souls are, again, trying to type, but also that they can appear to insta-explode in your face when they were starting to explode off-screen, but that's only because of the wonky Z axis this game has - making the off-level areas have invisible grounds would make teleporting souls be fixed.

The "getting stuck to you" thing is because souls can be pushed, so if you switch direction while they're stuck to you they'll get unstuck.
I'll try this out later, although the phenomenon is not easy for me to reproduce. If it's true, then you just changed my life. (That's an exaggeration, but I do mean: thanks.)

Just like flies. They are annoying. Swat them away and they'll come back.
Add statuses? That's a problem.
They are scumbags during battles.

I really love the soul mechanic and find it incredibly enjoyable, but it's becoming somewhat over-used. The vast majority of endgame levels created since their introduction use the mechanic- 3/5 danger missions have variations of the bubbles, and both of the latest missions throw them in. I would say that 1/5 of endgame levels should feature them at most. There are 2 other mechanics that make the player feel rushed in a similar way, phantoms and grimalkats. If being rushed is how we're supposed to feel, tweaking and using these would be particularly welcome-- especially grimalkins, which have obvious safe areas (candles) for knights to rest.
This is a particularly poor thing since their presence makes levels feel rushed and forces constant movement i.e. no communication, no bathroom breaks, and therefore less desirable to play through on casual runs- contrast this with grinchlin assault, where it's very possible to take a short break to grab a drink or chat with your party members in between waves.
---
On the flip side, more could be done with souls for events. Lets take the black kat event for example-
1. All undead levels with kats gain souls for the duration, with more souls spawning the later the depth and the closer the depth to a terminal. D28 would have an unbelievable amount of souls spawning.
2. Additional black kats spawn the deeper you go. 100% black kat spawn rate at D28.
Suddenly, the event is less of a grind and more the challenge of a lifetime with huge rewards.

If it's true, then you just changed my life.
Hopefully it works just as well for you as it has for me. :)
Typically I just dash out of the way when I notice it because by the time I walk away the server will decide "nope" and decide that I'm still in soul explosion range, but when I realize a soul is starting to get big before it gets too big simply walking backwards should help. Good way to "create" the issue is to just walk headfirst into the souls, then just walk backwards and they'll stop moving with you.
I really do wish souls weren't affected by our knights bodies, however.
This is a good topic of discussion. My main problem with lost souls is the occasional bug that causes them to stick to you like glue, so that you cannot escape them. Then they wreck you.
Otherwise, I regard them as kind of like a board hazard --- something that forces you to keep moving, rather than staying in one place. And that is fine with me. Specifically:
* In Dreams and Nightmares they never affect me. I guess it's because there's lot of room to maneuver.
* In Ghosts in the Machine they hinder me at the start, but after that there is enough room to maneuver away from them.
* In Heart of Ice there's usually room to maneuver, but they interfere with my fiend-dodging routine, so I find them fairly difficult.