How many characters to create?

[Charlemagne]

Once I discovered I could buy all the characters I wanted at Oleg's, I got carried away and built about 6 or 7. (If you buy the mercenaries before leveling up they only cost 100. The elf says 500 but it's really 100...)
Because the game-given chars are not too much of my liking. Oh they're OK but not quite there. I love the characters I created, but I think this is bad for the game because the XP get spread too thin.
Some advice from veteran players would be welcome:
-How many mercenaries to buy at start, if any? Or stick to the game-given ones.
-Play with normal XP spread, or, with only characters that go on the mission get XP?
-Play with normal XP spread, or, with only the character that uses a skill gets XP?
-Rotate your soldiers regularly, or stick mostly to an A-Team?

[Archon]

I prefer having an A-team, but the created characters make for nice advisors and meta level fighters at the cost of dialogue. Being underleveled in pathfinder can equate to not being able to even scratch the enemy. Just take your waifu and a solid team of 3-4 who are ideally your advisors as well

[Caddo]

XP being spread caps at the amount you have in your party, if you turn said option on. You'll see a group of 6 getting the same XP with it on/off, but if you have a group of 5, you'll notice more XP for the 5. If you're running a group of 6 anyways, the people in the back, that is not active, will just be treated as if they were magically there.

This is how I've always understood it and why that option is only turned on if you're running less than 6, for "more" xp for your current team.

[Sloul Des Tucs]

You can create all the mercs you want without xp penalties (check the options).

On another note, I wouldn't rely on mercs to be advisors as they get a -4 penalty on their rolls.

Also, using mods you can reroll companions in every way.
The only issue I had was with Valerie, I rerolled her as a paladin, but she could not level up as a paladin, so i rerolled her again (with something p. cannon in the end).

[jonnin]

4 total and xp for the stashed guys turned off is a good team that levels up rapidly.
a full team of 6 levels slower.
I would never buy a full team: you lose all the companion xp from their quests. This is a non issue in a 4 man team, of course. So if you hate the companions, and not a one suits you, 4-5 is your magic number IMHO.

tip... do not level up after intro and you are charged a very low level 1 price per merc.