I'm still not at all convinced that Larian really did anything at the 'fans request' that they weren't going to do already anyway hehe.

Minthara made waves because she was in that initial cutscene and they kept changing her hair around patch to patch in EA lol. People probably would have made similar noise if they'd changed Nadira's appearance ya know. Karlach is still conspicuously absent in all the banner art, with Mizora in her spot for the Struzan style poster stuff.

I don't see these characters being heavily iterated in response to EA feedback, since frankly, everything in the EA development process seems like it took about 10 times longer than any of us really imagined. Some of that datamined material for other planned companions or origins seems like it's from way early on. The Narrator was already the narrator by the time EA started, right so any self narration recorded in the past tense was probably scrapped early on.

Disappointment with where they landed seems to come in two contrasting favors, like it's either "just listen to what the players are telling you they want" = keep noodling, or "don't listen to what the players say they want" at the risk compromising intent or going lowest common denominator for everything. I think EA was more the later than the former honestly. Most things didn't get a big change from what they showed off initially 3 years ago. I feel like the lead time on some of this characterization was probably like a full year, or even 18 months, or more, so I somehow doubt player Feedback was the culprit on this one. Like anything else they held back for full release that didn't get run through the pressure cooker.

I think they could course correct for their Collector's Edition whatever, and maybe still hit some marks. I think the doppelganger thing would work well for a mod that just does the hard cut, but it's harder for me to imagine them doing that for the game as released. For that stuff, I think they have to add material, since walking it back after the fact is almost impossible. You don't get a second chance at the first impression, but you can get for the second third and fourth impression, but that means more paths.

Having the characters included but sans recruitment into the party, means there is nothing to the character outside the story as presented. When the character joins the party as a companion, this changes, and you get other ways in on it. I think that's why Jaheira works here, since her callback flavor once she's in the party just gives more opportunities for happy recall. They should have done the same for Viconia in my view, so the contrast in approaches wouldn't seem so stark.