Certainly the players will always have the option to choose fewer than the maximum number of allowed party NPC's, so yeah 6 or 8 or 12 is fine with me if Larian can write them. I can say that in BG-I I was good with six, but in BG-II I found a full six was cumbersome and I was generally happier with a core group of only 4 or 5, depending on whether my PC was multi-classed.
But I do find much encouragement from Icelyn's comment that the turn-based system is still fun even with a large party. This will be something new for me, and I look forward to trying it out!
