As of the time of me posting this 403 have voted for custom character while Origin characters remain under 100.
I have to wonder if Origin characters are more popular with the casual audience, those who don't obsess over a game enough to post/vote in forums. I imagine they're probably the majority of Larian's customer base. And of course it's not like you can't play a custom character on one run and an Origin character on another - I've seen lots of people around here planning to do just that.
And a good chunk of the work has to be done to make them companions anyway
