Opinions on the characters (Especially squadmates and Ryder) of ME:A, based on their own merits. Gre

Valid point. I looked at her as a renegade who embraced the new notion of working for the greater good because the exodus to the andromeda galaxy dictated it. If anything she's a renegade who realized she's a pragmatist at heart.

I liked her more than Chakwas. Looking back, I don't think I even really liked Chakwas all that much. I would have preferred Dr. Michel, but I opted to keep Chakwas in ME3 because I don't like disposing of all that personal history of the trilogy, that and Chakwas pathetic begging kinda broke me XD

Nope.
Michel isn't bad, but I like having a drink with Chakwas.
 I would have Chakwas and Kelly on the ship. What Kelly can do is walk around the ship asking the crew/squad about any problems they may have. Maybe have a scene showing a character in the medbay talking with her about whatever.

If you stack the companions up game per game, ME:A can hold its own simply because, for me, each an every ME game has meh characters

ME1 i found garrus an both human comps meh, ME2 i again found garrus meh along with jacob, miranda, jack and samara, by time ME3 came around i had killed garrus of but in playthrough he was alive i still found him meh aswell as virmire survivor an vega, Liara an Tali were ok through the trilogy but meh in seperate games, in ME:A i'd airlock Liam an jaal, cora an vetra were meh an peebee was ok

I like the Krogans wrex, grunt and drack

In ME1, the only companions that felt truly interesting to me were Wrex and Ashley. I actually forgot Tali was there most of the time. I never took her anywhere unless it was specifically to hunt geth.

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I think Wrex deserves a fair amount of credit for being the only companion in ME1 to really present some real drama, even if only briefly. I really liked his standoff on Virmire a great deal.

I don't think it's being very fair. In the ME1 list, the only ones that are actually plot critical are Tali and Liara. The rest have more cursory involvement with the story. Garrus has a personal stake with Saren, but so does Anderson and Shepard at that point, and Garrus, being optional, doesn't really have the capacity to provide leads, only context. Ashley and Kaidan are basically the human sacrifice. They're important in that respect, but not really critical. Wrex's story is bigger in the long term, so he gets a pass from this one since his survival has greater implications later on.

In the MEA list, Cora is essentially the lead to the asari ark. While it can be argued that the lead could conceivably come from anywhere, the same would be true of Tali's information, or whatever Liara gleans from Shepard's mind (Shiala, for instance, could have given us this information upon her encounter).

Jaal is our only way into Aya's vault. If he didn't agree to accompany Ryder, Efvra would probably have expelled the Tempest crew off of the planet.

Fair points, but ME1 was a more singularly story driven game. It also feels like Bioware got away from that model after ME1. I'm also not entirely convinced that every character was more relevant to the story in ME1 than Andromeda, seems like an exaggeration. 

If you mean what I think you mean then they blew that idea all too hell with Andromeda.  Andromeda is a story of a bunch of smaller stories combining to tell a much larger story, like a TV show.  Even the 'main story' was not the main story but just the most important element of all these smaller stories.  The story of Andromeda was making Heleus livable for the races from the MWG, which almost every single quest in the game...in fact only some of the random tasks don't count...go towards those objectives.  Which I think is the problem, because yes...technically...the cast may not have all had universal effect on the main story, but they all had a lot to contribute to the overall purpose of Ryder's mission, making Heleus livable.  Even if Liam was bad at it, for a while.

If the story of MEA was making Heleus livable for the Milky Way species, then the story is over before the game even begins because of places like Kadara. And Aya, for that matter, though that was not a place the Milky Way species can settle out of respect for the Angara. And Havarl, though that is equally off limits. And Voeld, cold as it is. And Elaaden, hot as it is. The only planets that come off as not really habitable are H-047c (for obvious reasons, though even there mining operations thrived) and Eos, which oddly was hospitable enough for initial settlement but couldn't sustain it because of the kett and the wildlife (were Kandros and Apex asleep?).

Making Helus "livable" wasn't the "main story," nor was it Ryder's mission. The "main story" of MEA (and Ryder's mission) was finding a new home - which proved to be Meridian.

- Kadara unstable politically - not relevant to its "livability."
- Kadara's acid water - relevant, but the angara had already found a way to successfully filter the water.
- Elaaden borderline hostile to the Initiative - true, but not relevant to its livability. The presence of gangs (of several species), the krogan, the flophouse and the trading posts indicates the planet was habitable, albeit uncomfortably so.
- Elaaden's water supply was a concern - Finally, a valid concern that affects livability. There was a large aquifer on Elaaden, and ice was being mined on Voeld and shipped to Elaaden for water. While activating the vault eases the heat, it doesn't solve the water problem, so Elaaden is as viable with as without the vault's activation. And the outpost can be established regardless of the vault's status, rendering the point moot.
- Only surviving species would have been the krogan - pure speculation.
- Havarl's environmental problems - We simply know that activating a vault improved things. Hard to discuss the real issue at hand when we don't know what caused the threat of overgrowth. As it stands, Havarl is, at the time of the Initiative's arrival, livable, though its prognosis is arguably the worst of any of the planets we land upon.
- Voeld was too cold - doesn't explain the presence of numerous angaran daar, the resistance presence, and the Initiative outpost (which can be established without switching the Vault on - like Elaaden's).
- Voeld & Eos Kett presence - valid concern, but a question of safety, not a question of whether a planet was "livable."
- Kett presence in the cluster - ditto
- Eos radiation - earlier attempts to settle Eos had radiation shields (which still worked, even by the time Ryder arrived). A concern, but manageable. If the intent was to gather resources, radiation was not worse than on H-047c, where mining and resource-gathering thrived.
- Ryder started the ball rolling - rather, Ryder succeeded where others had failed. Why (s)he succeeded where others failed would delve into the issues of MEA's main story, and we've already side-tracked the thread enough as it is.
- Meridian needed to be found - the issues in the system were manageable, making Meridian (and the vaults) a nice bonus as regards livability, but unnecessary. 

With all of this in mind: the Initiative would have died because of Addison's and Tann's mismanagement, not because Heleus lacked "livable" planets.

Ryder's mission - indicated from the game's promotional material to Scott / Sara's initial conversation upon waking from cryo to the promotional info-wall in the infirmary to Alec's initial dialogue (the entire reason they landed on Habitat 7 in the first place) and much more  - was "finding a new home for humanity." Establishing outposts and creating infrastructure was never the end-goal of the Initiative; they were a means to an end - that end being finding a home-world. Which is why Ryder only repeats the signature phrase, "We made it!" after successfully taking Meridian and claiming it as the new homeworld - not after establishing any of the outposts or switching on any of the vaults.