I think there is a tension between wanting a table top perspective where the player only controls a single character vs the godmode game where the player controls multiple characters at a time.
Most D&D style computer games I can think of that have come out subsequent to BG have gone with the former approach, like basically every Bioware game since Dragon Age, all the games with a driving or 3rd person or cinematic view. The ones where our companions are treated mechanically more like followers or henchmen, and meant to be sort of half out of reach of the player's full control. This emulates more of the table top player's perspective, where you are just one player in a group of players.
Most D&D games that I can think of prior to BG were of the godmode variety, like all the old goldboxes from SSI, or the Might and Magic games, and others of that ilk. Sure they could be hotseat or on LAN but they were essentially single player games. The only games that have come out since with the godmode are the Iso ones like Pillars or Pathfinder, trying to reincarnate BG/IWD gameplay specifically. The perspective that the godmode type game captures is almost more like a TT DM's view rather than a player's view. I think it actually caters more to the budding DM. Even if it doesn't have a dungeon master console like Neverwinter, what BG1/2 did was give a sort of half-view presentation, where the player got one eye behind the DM screen on a fully dialed campaign, learning to view the D&D gameplay more in terms of the whole Party rather than the single Character. The old Gold Boxes and BG were almost like DM trainers for people who didn't have a group, in an era before the internet revolutionized communications. They are kind of unique in time, the godmode games, like an artifact of a bygone age, with a style of gameplay that didn't really match TT expectations at all, but nevertheless managed to present the game system to an audience that maybe wouldn't have had access otherwise.
It's just a different sort of vibe, but I miss having 6 as an option which I feel allowed for more rotations in the party narrative, where you could have a core group of 4 and then rotate the 5th or 6th slot as you went along. That was the set up for BG1/2. You got a core party of 4 in the first chapter, but then had other companion NPCs thrown at you along the way, following the main story beats. And at least in BG2 some nice narrative breaks where you switch characters out in-story, without feeling like you straight ditched them. They also did that thing where the companions had a local home turf at some Inn or whatever area, to feel like they could have something going on when not rolling with the party. Or also those pairings where some NPCs would cruise together unless one died. The companions were more like narrative vehicles for the campaign rather than substitutes for actual players in an idealized version of BG where you had 6 actual players on the LAN. The emphasis on Co-OP from the UI makes it feel like this game BG3 actually is about getting more than 1 human to play it at a time. For whatever that's worth
I think 6 is pretty low hanging fruit though. If they won't even go for 5 I'd be pretty disappointed.
