Pros and cons of the rivalry/friendship system

DA2 these gifts are just for the easy friendship/rivalry. Every piece adds to the character's story. These not just as DAO the many trinkets for Morrigan. (In DAO the personalized gifts were brilliant idea – was interesting to find out, that Zevran would be happy with glove/boots, or Oops! This mirror! I must buy! Such a mirror could be been, what Flemeth took away from her!) So: the gifts aren't bad, I would like similar things in the future games.

I just didn't understand, why people doesn't likes the gifts at all. I understand, why people wants to avoid the cheat-kind gifts, but there's no explanation to reject the story-wise gifts. (Okay, if anyone plays from wiki, then the gifts loses their story-values, I suppose, and become mere game-mechanical/strategical tools.)

I agree with you on that. I just wanted to point out that some people see it this way, not that I am one of them.

When I rivaled Varric he struggled to give a real compliment and seemed to fear my Hawke a bit. I thought there was a difference

My aggressive sociopath Hawke did it easy. Don't like Kirkwall, never take a joke, rip people off, and kill good people. I think I remember letting Anders heal the brother and still killing him anyway. He asked to die, didn't he? His one lucid minute in possibly years and his own brother suggests to deny his final request? 

I find rivalry interesting, but I don't really have the heart to do it. Especially not with Varric. Who could rival that face?

In the end all my Hawkes have ended up either super nice or neutral enough not to piss people off.

Just completed DA2 for the first time, I'm not much of a fan of the friendship/rivalry system tbh- relationships/interactions without the possibility of genuine dislike seem to lack a sense of depth, a sense of anything being at stake (since there's nothing you can say or do that will cause them to outright dislike you). Otoh, the possibility of respectful disagreement or rivalry is an interesting addition to the standard like/dislike system- it'd be nice to see a companion approval system that wasn't a simple binary between like/agree and dislike/disagree, or friendship and rivalry, but with, say, 3 possible outcomes: like/agree, respectfully disagree (something like rivalry), dislike/disagree.

The only cons I can think of is that the characters had two things they strongly believed in each? Like Fenris was anti mage and anti slavery and his points were related to those two things, so you could really flip flop on his approval bar.

Merrill was blood magic but also rebelling against her clan. I consider her use of blood magic responsible (as it only harms herself) but I was also sympathetic to her adoptive mother. One time I rivaled her ust to rival her and see what that was like-- even though I let her get the arunholm, the scene was scripted to say I hadn't due to the rivalry status.

Anders was pro mage freedom but also anti Fenris Anti Merril and Pro Anarchy Rebellion. His conversation branches were a bit better in that your dialogue could reflect the differences between his issues even in an argument. And it's easy to get lots of points from him, before he becomes totally devisive in Act 3.

So yeah, the only cons to the system is that if you friended them, they assumed you were for everything they believed in. And Against everything they were if you rivaled. But it's still better than blanket approval of Mass Effect Universe. Perfect world is that the game would track every major conversation agreement point rather than points, I suppose. But DAI didn't do that even if it did keep the disapproval scenes.