If You Had To Cut 3 Squadmates from ME2...

And if he's wrong, they fail and everyone gets taken.

This isn't a "my perspective, your perspective thing." Get all the right tools for the job that you can. Where your sort of thinking comes into play is in resolving their various daddy issues. You could argue that we don't have time to rescue some civilian or play lawyer or take a teenager to their version of a strip club.

Yeah, no. You have neither the foothold in the CB that Cerberus did in Omega, the knowledge of how to play its players that Cerberus had in Omega or the fleet + competent admiral that tied it all together. And if you do, there's no point in bothering with Shepard either. If TIM had Petrovski and a fleet waiting in the wings at that time, he should've spent the billions he did on Petrovski getting a few more warships, weapons and men. Given his initial assumption that the Collectors had a homeworld, this would've been the more reasonable (yet still suicidal) approach.

And apart from Jack, Grunt and Legion, there are no risks to anyone you recruit (though the latter are accidents so that skews the thinking somewhat). Kasumi, Thane, Zaeed are simply bought, Mordin and Okeer are probably also paid but also enticed by other favors or information to be made available. Samara is at best a risk to the person approaching her. That leaves Garrus and Tali, neither of which are much threat and are secured through Shepard.

Thane isn't bought.  It's explicitly stated that he is doing this for free.

Jacob- He's too much of a blank slate. No real personality. Give his role to Zaeed. Having him as a grizzled veteran taking an easy job for the cash and ending up as hero would have been great. He deserved some proper dialogue.

Thane- Member of a dying race, got his wife killed, abandoned his son and contracted a fatal disease. Too much.

Grunt- Dull.

And Morinth if I need a 4th. I love the idea of Morinth but her character is so underdeveloped that I'd rather not have the option of recruiting her at all. She's so disappointing when you get her on the Normandy. And she should have replaced Samara at the Monastery in ME3.

My mistake. You're right. But you do go in there intending to hire him. Doing it pro bono is his decision.

Based on how I liked the characters, what they brought to the story and how interesting their loyal and recrutment mission were the one i would cut will be:

Grunt: he didn't brought anything interesting about krogan, and he's the typical krogan, he doesn't think too much, only attack everything. His loyal mission was boring. He doesn't even have an opinion on the genophage, what's the point of having him? I'm still mad that Okeer died and we were stuck with him.

Garrus: He didn't brought anything on this game except being a romance imo, and his loyalty mission was boring.

Zaeed: The code to have him on my game was expired when I bought the it so I never had a chance to play with him, that's why I have no issue with cutting him.

Ouch, poor Jacob. Wow. I think his story is dull as hell, but 1st place?

Well, that gives me an idea on how the posters here feel about him. I mean, he's not my favorite character, but I didn't think he was that bad. He at least adds a bit to the story. He left the Alliance because he was disgusted that Shep's actions were being torn apart. Plus, I found him useful in combat, even if he was a goodie-two-shoes and more than a bit naive.

One of the three squadmates I voted for was Thane, who literally serves no purpose either in the story(like Mordin does with the seeker swarm countermeasure) or in the SM(not even a high rating in the 'hold the line" bit ala Grunt).

I voted Jack, Zaeed and Jacob.

That he does, but i was speaking purely in terms of ME2. You'd think that one would hire an assassin in order for him to.... assassinate someone, but that doesn't happen in 2. >_<

Edit: Didn't know about Kirrahe saving the councilor if Thane isn't around, interesting...