In my eyes the companions in BG3 also seem to cover all the usual personalities found in dating games which for me is a pretty big inducator what they were designed for.
I'm blaming Bioware for this, they started that trend (I love the Dragon Age games, but you see it there too)
Yes, thats when romance became mandatory and formalized on how they work (Mass Effect).
But there is still a lot of room for how you implement them. Compare Kingmaker/Wrath of the Righteous to BG3. With the Pathfinder games I never got the impression that companions are there to fulfil a romantic/sex fantasy role except Sosiel as the token gay character. But in BG3 I can't shake the feeling that romance/sex was a primary or at least very important design goal.
