Profiles were they a Mistake?

I've always played a soldier class, so I disagree. I enjoy the 3rd person shooting component of the game, so the more guns the better in my eyes. I also wouldn't say the statistics are necessarily deceptive. Think about it. Those who imported characters likely never changed their class in ME2 and ME3. It's not really surprising the soldier class would be the most played. As I said, I only had an interest in other classes in multiplayer. I started with a soldier Sheploo in ME1 and he stayed that way as I imported all the way to ME3. MEA, at least, gives more flexibility and allows players to try other things, instead of having to do another playthrough and start over.

I never felt the "squad based combat system" was ever that much to write home about either. Honestly, the only difference from MEA and ME3 is you could specify what abilities you wanted a character to use. Otherwise, squadmates are just as useless as they were in all the previous games, especially on Insanity. I actually found squadmates to be far more dependable (and likely to survive) in MEA compared to the previous games.

I never switch profiles. It's too easy to keep one with the three powers you use. I do alot of sniper so I just stay with infiltrator. Early game I did use soldier for awhile but then I found armor to make it all balance while still using Infiltrator. Between the powers, profile, armor and weapons you can make a build that does what you want without having to switch again. I actually found using the profiles annoying since to make a profile you have to do it in the loadout screen and changing the powers is not as easy as it should be.