So Astarion originally had an attack immediately option in his introduction and then Larian took it away? I have to wonder if they noticed a lot of people immediately killing him and decided to take away the choice to alleviate it, rather than trying to change the scene to something that wouldn't naturally instigate his murder.
It's so frustrating how non-existant Larian's check-in with us are. I wasn't part of the alpha testing for Wrath of the Righteous, but post release they were sending out surveys about what players did and didn't like. They even sent one about crusade mode just last month, and before they announced they were making a second season pass of expansion content, they sent out a survey asking about what people wanted in DLCs. That's more engagement post-development than Larian has come close to having.
