Surely you realize how subjective that is, right? Personally I don't find "all companions in WotR to be detestable or annoying". Some I like, some I don't but I try to judge them on the basis of coherence (are they true to the way they are presented? Is their development believable?) and the quality of their quest (the extra content they provide basically).
Of course it's very subjective when it comes what people like. You can be somewhat objective only if you'll make a proper statistical analysis of people preferences. If we go by coherence criteria then only 4 characters fit in the well-written category for me: Camellia, Daeran, Woljif, and Regill. Out of those only Regill is somewhat likeable.
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-Ember: I get why some people don't like her but personally I think she brings quite an unique prospective to the game. The point of her character is that she is a living saint even without mythic powers. She's willing to forgive everything and everyone and she actually has a chance to change people's minds and even their nature. I admit she's not very coherent though (but having her not fighting would be a problem in a game like this). She develops differently depending on the kind of mythic path you choose though and her personal quest is not particularly interesting or deep.
If she's so pacifistic she shouldn't have been a companion, just an NPC. Alternatively, Owlcat should have made a special rules for her in combat, where she is prohibited to use any attacks that cause direct damage, only sleep, charms, fear, dispels, buffs and similar spells.
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-Arueshalae: She's honestly not as bad as some people try to make her look. First she was a succubus on the path of redemption even in the original tabletop adventure, second, how do you think a succubus that wants to find redemption should behave?
Path of redemption doesn't mean being meek, submissive, naive, or idiot. I expect her to behave like a hundreds years old wise and responsible woman who knows and understands the consequence of her actions, not as a teenage schoolgirl who blush and freak out if someone touched her hand. Imagine if someone touched kind grandma by her hand...
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Now, consider how most of these characters change depending on your choices and how vast and deep the game must be to accommodate all of these different interactions. Personally I don't think that criticizing the characters because you find them "dislikable" on a subjective basis is fair criticism of the game.
I'm not saying that it is easy to make good believable characters, I'm saying that Owlcat mostly failed, probably they should have made less characters but give them more content and make fewer asshole companions. Another annoying thing is, by some reason, devs think that evil characters must like other evil characters. Evil characters work together only if someone powerful keeps them under the iron boot but characters despise each other even working together.
