They are freaking annoying when they are running away from you and your other characters are getting mobbed, though.
Depends what you mean "licenses you need".
I wanted everyone to have full license boards when I'd finished so a couple of magick pot fights came in handy. I still needed it to give all my reserve people arise and other high lv magicks too. Part of this may be because I used embroidered tippets rather than golden amulets. I wanted to be lv 99 rather than have full license boards early on.
FFs completed: IV,V,VI,VII,VIII,XII
Currently playing: III
You could have given golden amulets to the reserve characters while the active ones used the embroidered tippets...thats what I did