Keeping this on top - title like this deserves some love and appreciation!
But I agree he does - especially with those Astarion's lines about Cazador when you might not even know, he's a vampire yet.
For me he's always shown up after Nettie (but I suspect completing any of "deal.with the parasite" quests would have done it), but I've been making a lot of long rests because it's the only reliable way I know of to make companion related cutscenes happen
