To be fair, as of the latest community update, it turns out he is right. In my initial response I argued with the information and assumptions I had at the time, but now Larian has given us official information which validates OP's claim. The hirelings are pre-generated characters and unless we can respec every aspect of them, our only way to have our custom parties is by the multiplayer method. Which is a workaround hailing back to the original BGs and not actually what was expected in a much more modern game.
Oh I get it now, he wasn't complaining about being able to create hirelings of any class, rather make them all custom. eg three dwarves, etc
Well there are 12 hirelings available. I imagine if you had the option to make them through character creator you would have to use the voices on that and there aren't 12. I'm assuming they use different voices from that system, so they don't all sound like posh English people and there are a few barks that are relevant to the race. I imagine they don't all talk a lot, but they should probably say stuff now and then and make noises.
It's probably just down to not using the same resources.
