Clammo

At risk of sounding conformist to popular opinion, this pretty much hits the nail on the head for me also.

This works fine for me. Especially the part about not forcing companions on you, which is a particular bugbear of mine. Nothing worse than being stuck with a companion who bugs the hell out of you. Sounds to me like it'll work like BG did, as evdk intimated, where you could choose to solo but it'd be cheesy as hell.

Whilst I'd prefer it not to have, I pretty much thought this was a done deal. Either way a proper old school style ismoetric RPG is far too good and rare an opportunity to pass up.