My first 2 times playing through I picked up Yoshimo and kept him until his untimely demise, because of the whole Imoen-gone thing. However, beyond that, I complete forsake Yoshimo (not only because I wanted to see how the plot played out without him) but also because I met this way cooler, more hilarious, and much more versatile thief named Jan Jansen. Some of the best dialogue in your party can only be instigated by Jan, and he's a way cool Illusionist too.

Plus once I got Throne of Bhaal, I started evaluating an NPC's usefulness also considering their High Level Abilities and the raised EXP cap... Jan at least can get HLAs in both Thieving (Use Any Item) and his Mage skills (Planetars).

I don't miss Yoshimo at all.

One of the best CRPG's ever made, IMHO. Planescape, Icewind Dale... fantastic. They don't make CRPG's these days like they used to, unfortunately.

My one complaint about BG2... Yoshimo! Yoshimo was just plain awesome and had the best random comments next to Minsc.

"Hiiiii-ya! Tourists love that stuff."

And then he gets perma-killed half-way through the game which seriously gimps your party since he was the only decent thief NPC available. I remember how pissed I was the first time through the game since basically I was tripping every trap and having to leave locked chests behind since Imoen and Nalia were such piss-poor substitutes. The second time through I purposely rolled a thief just to make sure I got all the loot in the game.

Seriously, the game allows you to return your vampire-cursed girlfriend (who you wind up having to destroy) back from the dead but not some poor thief who got insta-gibbed? What's up with that?