Doing a bit of reading on it and I wanted to see if I had it right.
The origin characters have their own quests but you don't have to have them as your main in order to do the quests, they just have to be in your party. They have different unique dialogue options but nothing that is intrinsic to the game, just flavor.
The downside to using a custom character is that takes a slot out of your party if you are wanting to complete the quest lines from the origin characters.
You can still complete their quests even if they aren't in your party, you must have to switch them out occasionally in order to do so.
Do i have that about right?