Alright, to properly address the OP - I believe I understand what you mean, but please correct me if I am wrong; the options that we get to deal with the snarky attitude with our companions is often... Lacking, at best. And it is not due to the companions itself - personally, I like the vast majority of them and I find their conversations entertaining in themselves, but I do agree with OP that the responses are often... Not very impressive. It is just our (in-)ability to properly respond to their behavior, regardless if we want to call them out for being confusing or behaving poorly (ahem, SH), simply tell them to "sit down" (although, you can do this with Lae'zel at times) or simply make a in-character decision to do something snarky back - like roll our eyes, laugh at them, give them a snarky comment or even just sighing, going like "Ugh, never mind" - aka. making an in-character decision that the game actually registers as us calling out their behavior.
Hmm, as long as our character is not voiced I am going to *ASSUME* that Larian left the responses the way they are to keep it as simple as possible - with room for imagination to take over the actual reply. What concerns me, personally, is IF we actually get a fully voiced character... I fear multiple situations like Star Wars: The Old Republic where you select an "descriptive" option, and what comes out from your characters mouth is so off the target that you almost fall of your chair either laughing, or cringing in full despair (dez-pair, huehuehue). Anyhow, since we have noted in earlier topics that it seems probable that our PC might be fully voiced by the end of release - it might get better (or much, much, much worse :'] ) depending on what happens. Fully voice being implemented would also explain why there are so very few dialogue options despite our character not having a voice (aka, should be easier to add more flavor lines).
