I played through mass effect and before Elite, it was the best space opera avaliable. Honestly it was planetary romance, pun partially intended.
I put a lot of work into Tali in the first(best) ME. Ended up with Jax in the second and never finished the connection with Tali in the third. I liked the Geth too much to erase them all, and Legion was my buddy. It really made an impact in the ending knowing what could have been...
Really hoping to play as a Quarian in ME4.
As to Npc companions in Elite, id love to have a co-pilot, or an engineer or a science officer aboard. With friendship quests and romance and all that rp goodness. Skyrim managed this well, if not to the depth of ME. My Shepard and Garrus were pretty good friends by the end of the series, id love to have somthing similar. Maybe hire a navigator for exploration and after so much time out under the big sky they could choose to stay on. We could have a whole Firefly crew eventually! Sry got a bit excited by npc's it happens somtimes.
I understand that this is not even on the radar for the game, but they have said we will.get up out of the pilots seat one day, and after that who knows what we will be able to do.