Now that we can put a few crew members to sleep to at least get those that we really don't like out of the lineup, I was thinking about other ways to manage the crew and considered a "buddy system". The idea is that you could group two crew members together, effectively making them a team:

You'd get only a certain number of buddy options, based on your character level, same as being able to put crew members to sleep.
You can't make your first mate a buddy.
You can't make a sleeping character a buddy.
Buddies would share a single probability percentage.
Buddies would be inseperable in the sense that should you only get two companions for a fight, you would not have the option to get any buddied companions.

The idea being simply to ensure that should you get one companion, that you always get the other, for whatever reason, practical or esthetic. A prime example for me would be my musketeer. I have Louis le Bisque as my first mate and a number of other musketeers high up on my companion list. So when I get someone like Milo Graytail with flanking, he has no one to flank with sometimes. Thus, I make Milo and Ratbeard buddies, and I get a fun rat pirate grouping and the ensured ability to use all of Milo's abilities.

I'm curious to see what other people think about this idea, so I welcome the comments!

Canny Matthew Tolliver, level 50
Able Caleb Tolliver, level 42

Sounds like it would be neat, I can see where this would be useful.
But it seems like something we'd be wanting to change every other battle, what if you dont want them linked together for any specific instance or battle?

I prefer playing over constantly reconfiguring companions, the only battles that I think are significant enough to warrant a need for this are the epic battles, where we could choose the ones we want anyhow.