I’m definitely with you on feeling like the companions and their stories are the best things on display here. But in my opinion, some of them simply aren’t fully fleshed out to the point where it feels like Larian just intentionally didn’t try as hard because those companions weren’t the ones that had ravenous fanbases bringing attention to the game with constant discussion of romances. Astarion and Shadowheart just objectively have much more content than anybody else, and characters like Wyll and Minthara are so far behind that they feel like generic quest npc’s instead of integral members of the party. This is super unfair to the people who created the characters, and as an actor, I must say it’s incredibly unfair to the actors as well. Imagine being told that your awesome character isn’t going to be given much to do because they can’t sell copies of the game based on sex appeal. Neil Newbon’s performance as Astarion is phenomenal and deserves the praise it receives, but it really rubs me the wrong way that he’s seemingly the only actor with a spotlight on him. It’s no surprise that he was put forward and won awards for his performance when his character is the golden boy of the die-hard fans and has HOURS more dialogue than some of his costars who are equally billed as main characters.
In terms of the actual game, I don’t think there actually needs to be new areas or quests added to the game to remedy the holes in these characters stories. A little dialogue can go a long way in making things coherent and polished. All it would take is a few scenes that don’t even require you to play the game beyond choosing dialogue, but we seemingly won’t ever get it because Larian just doesn’t feel like addressing those issues instead of altering animations for kissing scenes.
