On my first time through, I never used story people. I'd already worked on my generics too much to want to get rid of them. The only times I ever used them were at a certain battle near the end ((SPOILER)Balk II), and at Nelveska Temple, because those were just too hard. This time I'm using story people more, just to see if they're any better. I find some of them more fun (mostly Beowulf so far, I don't have Reis or Cloud yet), but I think I made the right choice in leaving them for the second playthrough.