daetrin

This is sounding great, but I'd kind of prefer it if companions went on their adventures based on their own preferences which could change over time based on adventures they did and on adventuring with you via companion interaction. Having to pick out their adventures for them is a weird sort of micromanagement that I feel could be better couched as an aspect of the companion metagame. Giving companions some agency would go a long way toward making them feel more like their own people and not just more of your own characters.

Combine the two. Have spell scaling with caster level, but have adjunct effects add their own level-scaling effect. I don't know how this would tie into any sort of existing advancement system, but if you had to make choices on what spells to enhance and how, it'd be interesting. (Also, melee skills should work the same way. I don't want to see Linear Warrior, Quadratic Mage. And death to ability scores!)

I would like to see something utterly different. Like Asheron's Call's Virindi. Now, those were original, and also terrifying. It's relatively hard to invent a race that doesn't possess any degree of animorphism or anthropomorphism, and still have it be relateable. Not to mention you'd need a unique animation skeleton for something like that, and it might be harder to stretch the standard itemization (what need does an amorphous swarm of metal bound together by soul-energy have for boots?). I'd still like to see it, but even if they don't go for that, I'd like to see the less-used options (insectiods and reptiloids mostly).