The biggest issue I see is there's designing a character for combat but being garbage as a commander in the field/no way to level any of the good skills for campaigning and vice versa until you hit a level up from getting xp from any active/passive skill xp since they changed how level ups work in 1.4.3. Tactics/Medicine is invaluable as autocalc is great to train companions (Making sure to have the weapon they have is the only one you gave them to level it in autocalc i.e. a spear for polearm) + medicine experience is better from healing them over normal troops. Steward has been made god tier with it's final perk thou it only affects your party and not settlements so investing in it is good plus it levels automatically and still gives xp even at max learning limit.
There is a gripe I do have with perks you get along the way is like this, the amount of Party Leader/Role perks makes it so it wants you to be the one to spec into it as you want to have the most buffs possible or at least that's how I play. You can quite literally make a character specced for autocalcing thou by only using CNG, SOC and INT skills since the end tactic perk is really OP. Scouting is the end all, be all skill for leveling for you as the Party leader. As a test, I made my scouting 300 and perked out to maximize sight distance during day. I leveled up from 1 to 5 or so after a going from Sargot to Myleza* cause of all the tracks. This type of gameplay ruins the experience as it makes the companions just soldiers of your army rather than being in a Role assisting you as you can do everything yourself and since you are the party leader, you get even more benefits. /Companion needs to come back as a perk thingy.
About Companions : In my honest opinion, the only point in Companions is to have them as captains when you are soloing as they are the only way to get the captain buffs for your troops. Governor role is pointless as it takes up a precious companion slot unless using family if you play for 20+ years and not to mention the culture matters which in the next patch will make revolts a thing iirc so you must pick a companion who to be governor for your new castle/town that matches. The diversity of companions is terrible too. The Golden and The Swordsman are practically the best choices and having a good archer/crossbow user as their skills are high but the issue with them is that the two former are only Aserai. I'd say that companions need to be unique again and lower level 1-4 and have stories related to their skills they do have. Plus have a Foreign culture for some of them as it makes sense that there should be such characters as your character in Warband was a Foreigner originally which adds more lore to the backstories for the companions too.
I agree they need a companion overhaul and there needs to be more roles for them such as Trader(Trade)/Gaoler(Roguery)/Tactician(Tactics)/Diplomat(Charm) plus a limit increase potentially of maybe 2 per clan tier but only 2 at start of the game.