It's still an arbitrary limit, and it still needs to be raised. Even my craptacular onboard video card is more than capable of displaying more characters, let alone my actual video card. They need to find another way.

I was looking forward to displaying all my companions in my stronghold, but I didn't even get past my third character before it told me that I cannot display any more NPCs. This artificial limit needs lifting. If I unlocked NPCs I should be able to display them in my stronghold and not be told that "you can't do that" arbitrarily.