All the best games didn't have companions that just filled in the spreadsheet of class and alignment, they were representatives of factors and factions in the world. This has been a strength of Bioware style NPCs; because their worlds are typically, pretty well thought out and realized, that their characters can bring you into their worldview all the better.
This wasn't true at all for the original BG games, or the NwN games, or even the DA games. In the D&D games it was always all about providing players with enough class and alignment diversity in companions such that they could create whatever type of party they wanted. The big difference between the DA games and the D&D games was precisely that DA doesn't really have classes, and as such you can get by with only a small number of companion options.
Yes, comparing BG3 with BG2 is ideal, and in that comparison BG3 fails miserably (for now).
