This is an issue of balance between the camp that complains about combat taking too long and the ones who complain more is better.
I'm in the camp of wanting choices to matter, wanting to be mindful of party composition as opposed to just blurting out yes please. I'm in the camp of wanting fewer companions rather than more because the latter invariably leads to each being given less development time and thus tend to be less interesting.
I'm pro companion as opposed to camp-follower though, if we have many companions I don't appreciate an arbitrary limit on how many we could use. I want a realistic roleplaying reason as to why we leave that grizzled warrior, that powerful mage, or more likely...Shadowheart in camp while the rest of the party risk their lives.
