Idea for Henchies

We all know that henchies suck, so why not expanding the concept a bit more and allow players to use his own characters as henchies?
If we make 4 characters why not using the remaining 3 as henchies.?

It would be so interesting to see how well of badly we've built them and we would have our personalized little party to make soloing a more enjoyable experience.

Of course there's some tweaking to be made to avoid having henchies a lot more powerful than our main character (in case we have some Lvl20 characters and some Lvl6, 10 or whatever).
So my idea is to temporarily downgrade henchies to 2 or 3 levels below the primary character, to balance gameplay pretty much as it happens with the ones we pick in towns (Alesia, Stefan & C.).
If some of you know City of Heroes you'd be certainly familiar with the sidekick and reverse-sidekick concept.
Something like that.

I like that idea, it would defintely allow for a more customized henchmen experience. For the leveling problem they could just set the characters to the henchmens current level in that area and subtract the skill points equally. Or perhaps they would be 1-2 levels lower to make up for the fact they are probably better built with better skills, such as elites, at least for the early game.

I liked the idea of mercs in D2, sort of like henches, but with the option to add armor and weapons to them.

Because of Diablo 2's game engine (especially the addition of Enigma) mercenaries were way more useful than GW's henchmen.

Imagine Alesia never leaving your side (if you're caster/ranged) and being able to warp her to your position if mobs attack her.