Personally I think that not only is it a waste of resources, it also creates unnecessary difficulties on the writing and simply isn't worth it.
I agree. If they had never started with it, it would have been better (they could have custom templates for the less imaginative people) and they could have spent the time on improving or adding other things.
I imagine Larian might opt for a hybrid Origin-system where not all companions are optional player characters.
I hope they will do exactly that.
I hope for the same, but there would probably need to be some "good" playable characters to add to what we have for those who play that way.
