The big issue at hand is how WotC decided to throw alignments out, without thinking about how intrinsic alignment is to the cosmic lore of Forgotten Realms.
It's like removing the ability for Mario to power up a "crouch jump" despite being able to do so in every Mario since Super Mario 2, with the excuse that "it doesn't really affect any game play".
Alignment isn't just a set of guidelines for how to pretend to be your character, alignment is the metaphysical construction of the FR universe.
Everyone chooses their own destiny, the player's decisions cannot be predicted. In any case, the Alignment will most likely change during the game. If you make this line in the description of companions and neutral characters, they will lose their mystery.
