I just think they could be much, much more. Besides, ME "cheats".
And yet you happily support Larian in their endeavour to make the "companions" much, much less...
Edit: And I want to add that the writing in DA:O is MUCH worse than the one in BG2, no matter if we speak about companions or the overall narrative. It's worse in every single element. It still hurts that DA:O is worse than BG2 in pretty much every single element overall, not only narrative-wise...
Edit2: You also completely ignore my point that every game companions has in imminent point for the overall narrative just by "being there to help the PC". Is there better content possible? Of course. I never said BG2 had perfect companions. But it did A LOT of things right in respect to companions, stuff that was rarely done ever after again (mainly due to the fact that pretty much all modern games, Bioware ones included, are infected by voice-overitis...). I fear Larian will not built upon the good things about companions, it will just ignore them. Maybe they'll write a better inclusion of them into the main narrative - but that's not all that is needed for perfect companions. If they don't feel like real persons, if they don't have an emotional impact, they're ultimately useless to me and I feel indeed like I just used some random henchmen with a random backstory to help me in combat. But that's not what companions are all about for me. They have to be real persons within the context of the immersive experience, not PnP bots in SP.