You beat me to the punch Scrooge. My favorite characters were the ones CRPGs used to allow me to create for my party back before storyfags RUINED EVERYTHING with their joinable NPC bullshit. My Wizardy 8 party had infinitely more personality and charm than anything in Dragon Effect. Hell, the collection 4 bit colour icons representing my party in the Gold Box games had more personality because they were MY characters.
Eh... followers with personality and background have been a part of RPGs since far before the decline. Just because Bioware does it poorly doesn't mean the idea is bad. Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas all did it well, most here would agree.