Totems, totems, totems?

In this thread, we are looking for feedback on totems as a mechanic. This question is more open-ended and higher-level than some of the topics we bring up for discussion. You can explain what you don't like about totems, or how they would work if it was up to you.

There are only a couple of ground rules:

For purposes of this thread, please confine the discussion to totems and don't list everything you would like changed about the shaman class. Don't review talents or other spells. Just talk about totems.

Totems are a class-defining feature for the shaman. We are not going to remove totems and we do not wish to marginalize them. We are totally open to ideas that make them cooler, however.

Q u o t e:
In my opinion the buffing totems have already been marginalized. They had to be to balance the class against other classes. I don't begrudge the marginalization, but I do think that it makes those totems out of sorts.

To clarify, I meant margnizalization in terms of the feature. I have seen proposals before that were basically to pull every spell off of totems and just let shamans ignore them. We don't want totems to be a secondary class feature like pickpocketing or lockpicking. They need to be front and center, more like (to use the rogue example again) posions, combo points and stealth.