I agree with the point made about 'over the top' character design. But you're arguing against yourself by applying it to the BG3 companions. They literally have 1 thing to them that sets them apart from a generic NPC.
If you want the companions to have side quests then you have to lay the foundations for it somehow.
Not really, you could have voice sets that have plot dialogue and side quests attached to them and then create your own character and attach the voice set to it and come away with a companion character that feels tied to the plot but that you created.
It really doesn't take much fleshing out for folks to fall in love with companions. Think about MInsc in BG1. He has like 24 spoken lines and a hamster that says "squeak" if you touch it.. and after you rescue Dynaheir his little side quest is over. You can completely dump them after that if you want but for some reason you've already fallen in love with him and want to keep him around for the rest of the journey. Doesn't take much at all. .You don't need extremely fleshed out characters because your imagination fills in the blanks. They aren't giving us any blanks to fill because all these characters are designed to use as the main character. Origin characters might have been great for DOS but this is D&D which is built on creativity and using your imagination to build your own characters story.
