Really? There are plenty of folks in EA you can talk with that are perfectly friendly and helpful already. It stands to reason there will be more allies down the road. IMO the notion that 'can't have non tadpoled party members cause they'll cut our throats in our sleep' just doesn't hold any water. I mean, already we have Volo, Halsin and Wroot tagging along with the party-of course we *could* have non-tadpoled party members, and IIRC Larian is already planning that through the mercenaries mechanic as far as we know. Besides, Lae'zel already will literally try to cut our throats in our sleep and we can keep her around, so I don't see why this distinction of party members having to have tadpoles is a necessity.
From the standpoint of the player with metaknowledge, maybe. Most people indeed have a rather lackadaisical attitude regarding the tadpoles, much more than they should in my opinion. I mean, you tell Wyll that the tadpole is going to turn him into a Mindflayer, and he shrugs it off. You'd think he wouldn't hang around in the middle of a populated settlement, knowing that he might become a danger to everyone around him, but well. Anyway, as players we know that no matter what we do, we can't mess up too badly. So with that mindset, yes, the threat of strangers doesn't hold much water. But from the standpoint of characters, who aren't aware they can't lose, who don't know how anyone will react? I think it's reasonable to keep away from strangers and stick to other tadpoled people only.
As for the rest, It's one thing if it's an 11th hour party member in a jrpg, but the BG games...and BG III in particular have a lot of party conflict, with-as I mentioned earlier-lots of ways to lose party members. We are going to lose a lot of party member interaction when the cast gets culled at the end of Act I (even earlier if you side with the goblins) That party member interaction is going to be a lot less spicy and dynamic in act II if you only have 2-3 party members for the rest of the game.
We don't know for certain that the cast will be culled. It was the initial plan, yes, but I believe Larian have stated they are considering other options due to the backlash. I'm holding out hope that there won't be a party lock-in after all. It really does seem inane that we'd be restricted to three companions only when, as you said, there are so many potential ways to lose them.
The way I see it, if Lae'zel kills Shadowheart, for example, and I have a good roster of companions from the beginning, I can just replace her with the next best option. But if Lae'zel kills Shadowheart and companions are spaced out (and thus I have fewer to begin with), I might be stuck with an empty slot for however long it takes me to get to the point in the story where I can recruit someone else. So it's the same problem of less companion interaction, just from another angle.
In general, it's not as if BG3 drowns you in companions right away either. At the beginning you get Lae'zel, Shadowheart, Astarion, and Gale – just enough to fill your party and have one man in reserve. Wyll is in the Grove, which you may go to right away, or may only get to after clearing Withers' tomb. Karlach is further away, and depending on the route you take around the map, you may encouter her rather late. No word on where the remaining two are going to be, but what's there is hardly an unmanageable tide.
