Yes, I was trying to avoid mentioning that. But my point was that Allister and Morrigan are mandatory and "main" NPCs for most of the game. As such, a lot of the main plot even focuses on them, whereas the main plot wouldn't be affected too much if you didn't have Steven Blum (Oghren) in your party.

Sure, it may very well be Dragon Age: Prologue, describing what happened to the origins characters before we take control over them in DA:O. Nah, that's pretty much unlikely.
No matter what choices the player makes (suicide, killing Alistair, killing Morrigan... other choices I don't know about), I'm pretty sure it will have an effect on the next game. For none of my characters have I gotten further than the first city after you reach camp the first time (that's a mouthful), so I have actually no idea what choices can be made (though spoilers to not bother me).

She does have a very nice... OH you mean locked boxes!
She can be a pretty efective light fighter when levelled well, moderate strength & high dex & con help

I was under the impression that the Dragon Age: Journeys flash games were the prequels?
My problem was that I tried to balance her being good at combat and lockpicking. Unfortunately, there ended up being plenty of chests she couldn't pick (lack of cunning I assume, since the points were spread to DEX and CON).

I would be lost without the difficulty slider. While the oddly scaling difficulty in any given area (easy fights to absurd fights) can be frustrating, I always can switch to "easy" and clean up troublesome encounters.
Strangely, I've found most boss fights easier than some of the scripted encounters (having a cutscene place your party in the middle of a dozen archers is not cool, Bioware).

I find that having my PC as a mage, Bioware has fallen into the same problem as NWN2, where you automatically get put to the front of the group, so the axe-wielding maniac you're talking to can get a hit in before you can cast fireball and run away like a coward.
Although I did have an interesting ambush random encounter in Denerim, where a gate closes behind you. One Blizzard and a fireball later, I pull the level to let my three meat-shields... I mean companions in to finish off the unfortunate enemies.
Sometimes I do wonder why they aren't more scared of me, especially when you hear the guard captain say that if he tried to arrest you all his men would run off crying/screaming etc.

To be fair, I don't think anyone can really avoid the PC-mage problem. If I recall correctly, even in Baldurs Gate your party would get teleported to a spot to chat (admittedly, formations usually made it less painful).
The alternative is to let conversation start wherever you are. Can you really imagine the dramatic tension as the villain yells across a courtyard to you that he is going to arrest you? Or to tell you that you are "right where he wants you" when you are on the high ground and preparing to rain down a storm of arrows? :p

Another alternative would be to have the ability to move somewhat in cutscenes like in Assassin's Creed; the player can move about the area but is still "glued" to the overall cutscene zone. The end result is that cutscenes trap you as usual but you can still adjust your position and so forth in preparation for what is to come.

Which leads to either timed conversations (Bioware thought of that, but dropped it during ME development because it rushed the player) or gangrapes.
"Oh, yeah. You killed my father. Uhm, wait here while I queue up a few spells"

I was meaning in terms of movement only (again, as in Assassin's Creed). Allowing any combat actions in advance would give the player a significant advantage, whereas moving about within the allowed area only makes a difference at the very start of a fight, and the amount of room actually given to move around in will vary from cutscene to cutscene (so intentionally harder fights could have less room available or whatever).

But you still are just setting up an ambush. Using an Area of Effect spell for example, you can set up your formation so that the moment the conversation ends, you spam your spell and then gangrape the guy(s).
The reason this works in Assassin's Creed is because you aren't fighting during those cutscenes. You are just listening to someone. And, even though people like to pretend that Altair uses tactics and the geometry of a level to his advantage, by the time any of those trigger you are in the swordfighting phase (where Altair spanks the crap out of hundreds of Templars at once...).
I think that the best thing would be to find a way to bring back formations. But the problem with that is path-finding and the new emphasis on actually controlling the single character. Formations only ever really made sense with isometric or top-down perspectives. Either way though, it would be nice to just be sure that your meat shield was standing right next to you or that your caster was surrounded by meat shields.

My issue with the ambush cutscenes in games such as DA:O is that a powerful world-saving party (you + allies) can be ambushed by chumpy archers in the open wilderness. You know, no bushes, no big rocks, just a cliff and some dirt.

I think the formations would be pretty easy to bring back really. They've got the code to make the henchman position conform to the pre-set formation hooks at left, right & back. I see no reason why they can't do a subroutine that pulls the requested formation and sets the formation hooks to different locations.
Adding people in front might make things a bit weird. If they were to accept a delay in the front member hitting his mark, I'm thinking the PC will still be in front whilst walking but the henchman would hit his mark when the party stops. Otherwise they'd have to double or triple the pathfinding ai updates for the front member to make sure he stayed in front of you. Frankly I think the first option, whilst a bit messier, would be the better one or it'll feel like you're piloting the lead character as well as the PC
Nah the lockpicking is that device talent rather than cunning (though you need high cunning to get to the 4th level)

Lockpicking is both. Even with the 4th level talent, you need high cunning to open some of the locks (and not just the minimum to get the 4t tier skill).

You could always just have raised cunning and learned her Lethality :P
(its awesome)
Ive heard some people complain about the terrain looking dull. but i have to admit i like it... nay, i really like it. Might be me but it makes the world more real instead of that jrpg/world of warcraft insanity!