XCOM 2 is on sale 60% off...

[Avilan the Grey]

Different strokes and all that. Personally, I find my XCOM experience is greatly enhanced by replacing the largely anonymous and interchangeable randos with, say, the cast of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Quite aside from the inherent hilarity of the tonal dissonance, it's way more dramatic and exciting when That's Xcom, Baby inevitably happens. Wrestlers, Power Rangers and World Leaders are runs I've done, and enjoyed tremendously.

It comes down to much you care for the story telling and emergent narratives, I think. Some people play XCOM like it's Advance Wars or Starcraft where units are totally interchangable and losing one is nothing more than a loss of invested resources. Others play it like it's a Fire Emblem or Shining Force game, where each unit is distinct from the others and losing one means losing a character from the story, permanently. It's not surprising to me that those more invested in the units as characters would spend more time making said units more characterful.

Indeed.
I am finding that unlike my first instinct, almost exclusively use members of my team that has the Children of Anarchy options enabled. As a tangent, I have shortened my Pool to only ppl I really enjoy, and told the game to use a setting when randomizing squaddies with a 90% chance of using some kind of CoA gear. Besides it feels rather lore friendly; these people are NOT a trained military force, like in the first game. These are a rag tag bunch of people from all over the globe.

Spoiler: Here's a shot from my Skyranger after operation Gatecrasher:

Show

...That's not a cigar. It's a lip ring.

Edit: I am running "Tinman". My own definition: Turning autosave off, only allowed to save between missions or if I need to turn off the game. If I forget... well. This means that I can reload, but has to redo the whole mission every time. No save scumming after being really lucky.