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In principle, there is a gnome who is a semi-companion (hanging around in the camp as an NPC with his own questline). In my opinion, he is one of the best NPCs in the game, and his character is written in a "simpler" way, closer to the companions from earlier games, rather than being just another divine chosen one with a bunch of extra features. I would personally be glad to see him as a full-fledged companion, especially since he has his own personal arc and character development. But I agree that Larian made the custom characters very one-sided, if you look at the available companions: three humans (Will, Gale, and Minsk), three elves (Astarion, Halsin, and Minthara), two half-elves (Shadowheart and Jaheira), and one human with a touch of otherworldly blood (Karlach). The only exception is Lae'zel, if you ignore the fact that even githyanki, according to lore, originated from humans. Ironically, she is one of the most down-to-earth companions, without any extra features like a super-artifact in her chest. I agree with the likely reason for this approach.
Instead of putting more effort into the custom character branch, they are putting the main effort into the pre-made character branches, which simply have more content.
But in general, yes, I also don't like the trend that starting as one of the companions gives you more content than creating your own character. However, as I understand it, all this is more or less compensated by the Dark Urge, because you can give him any appearance and role-play as you like due to the "memory loss." But playing as such a character with a number of drawbacks is not for those who prefer a good playthrough.
Who even plays as pre-made characters?
In BG3, I decided to start with my own character because I wanted to play around with the editor (and get a half-elf with the appearance of an average normie, lol) and try role-playing from scratch. To be fair, the immersion effect in BG3 is still better than in Original Sin 2.
In general, I personally noticed that Larian has one common problem – the first act in both games is great, the second is more or less okay (in BG, however, the second act was slightly more enjoyable for me due to the need to search for light in the cursed forest, and all these crazy relatives of Torment are quite amusing), and then it all turns into a complete mess. In the case of Original Sin 2, it would have been good to end it with a battle on the island, rather than turning it into a hassle with running around Arx, where the party is already leveled up to god-like levels and clicks everyone like nuts even without using Source. In BG3, the Gates of Baldur themselves are quite boring; the city is large, there is a lot of stuff, but the party reaches level 12 by this point and also clicks everyone like nuts. Yes, there is a lot of quality gear in the city, but the anal rape squad on tactics can easily cope without it.
