Jaal the Mandatory Squadmate

He makes a lot of sense to bring along if you romance him and RP close ties/interest in Angara. If you are more Initiateve centered or distrustful character, it is better to leave him behind, and you will get more dialogue that way on Havarl and Voeld, because he will pipe in over the com.

Be able to part from some of his(her) team-mates and recruit it others, by limiting the number naturally …

By the way, MEA does have one of the worst cases of forcing the character upon the player, but he's not in our squad. It's Reyes and his Kadara errands.

I disliked that man from the moment he had shown up, but I could not avoid the fucking rooftop scene, and neither could I tell him to FO with chasing his ex-girlfriends and stealing him booze. It was terribly immersion-breaking to have objectives like 'keep helping that guy in order to get an outpost' for the planetary mission entry.

Last time I checked Shep did not have any mandatory and unskippable pep-talks or drinks with TIM.

Cerberus makes sense since it's a necessity, which is explained to the character AND to the player. We don't have 'keep helping TIM' or 'do as the guy says' kind of objectives. Plus there are all the options for expressing the dislike\distrust for the organisation and playing the 'I'm not Cerberus' angle.

ME2's entire plot was 'keep helping TIM', though. 

I like Jaal. He's a cool character, and I enjoy his interactions with Drack and Liam in particular. But I definitely agree that the game makes me feel obligated to drag him along way too much. It'd be fine if it were just for rescuing the Moeshae, but I also have to bring him to Voeld. And Havarl. And Meridian. Hell, even on Kadara, which he hates, I get more content with him on the squad because there's potential Resistance recruits and Angara murder plots and such. Add to that the fact that I know his romance, which I have zero interest in, got way more resources put into it than the options I actually like (which got super shorted on content in comparison) and I find myself resenting him a bit.

Makes him feel like MEA's version of Liara. Where he's pushed on me to the point where it's soured me on a character that otherwise might have been a favorite.

It would be awesome if they had a mechanic for making an unromanced  squadmate you take out with you the most your 'bestie' and have some of the dialog and banter reflect that. For me, Garrus was my bestie, from ME1 through ME3 and did more missions with my Shep than the LI (when he wasn't the LI), so I really enjoyed the portrayal of that friendship through the series. But I can see how it would be annoying if you didn't actually feel that way. And it would be great if the character you did feel you developed the closest friendship with was recognized as such instead.

You will miss gems like this

xboxclips.com/oo+GALAXY+oo/1a66f4bd-5e4d-478c-88c7-1ca6437563d3