SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!!!!!
Miranda will be back because Yvone Stahovsky is so friggin' hot, especially with the Aussie accent. I think they spent more time highlighting/designing/animating her amazing bust and flawless behind than the Normandy II. It was awesome how perfect they made her character model (based off her perfect real life body, but still). There were even camera movements designed to focus on her ass whenever she was on screen.
Wonder if her piece of shit father will play a part in ME3 ... maybe they need some private funding and he's the only billionaire industrialist willing to pony up. Family drama!
------ Banter
I'll echo the call for better interactions between the squad on missions, too. If not random convos (which would be great, but with twelve allies, potentially daunting), then at least more commentary when I choose to do something heinous or decent in a cutscene. There were way too many silent bystander shots going on when people should have been voicing their opinions either of how cool my mission solutions were or decrying my stupidity.
------ Zaeed
Zaeed was my favorite squad member. He had the best dialogue and some cool stories about his past adventures. In fact, I think he had more dialogue than any of the other characters excepting maybe Mordin. You couldn't really interact with him, but he had a lot to say.
I used him and Miranda exclusively (except for Loyalty missions when I had to balance the forced squad member, and the end game when I wanted pure firepower for the Terminator/Reaper, and so took Widow-armed Legion instead of Miranda).
I also didn't want to risk Miranda getting killed in some stupid dive in front of the bullet scenario at the last second. Situation didn't pop up, but was possible.
------ Endgame
The walkthroughs out there already cover which squad member can survive which assignment in the final mission, but all it really takes is some common sense:
The Tech Specialist should be a tech specialist: Tali or Legion. Mordin might work, too. Haven't tried him.
The Biotic Specialist needs to be Samara/Morinth or Jack. Miranda and Thane are not pure biotics, they're too weak.
Team Leaders need to be team leaders: Miranda, Jacob, Garrus ... and Samara works, I think.
Same with escorting the survivors to evac. A team leader will work.
All the others are pretty much loners and not equipped to lead teams. They'll either get people killed or sacrifice themselves taking on too much.
My perfect run through (All 11 Loyal, all 11 survived, plus rescuees and myself):
Part 1
Tech Specialist: Tali
Team Leader: Garrus
Part 2
Biotic Specialist: Morinth
Team Leader: Miranda
Part 3
Evac Escort: Jacob (the only time after Freedom's Progress he got to leave the ship and actually do something and it was escorting wounded back to the ship!)
Final Squad: Zaeed & Legion
------- Random Nitpick
Why was everyone using assault rifles in the final mission cutscenes? Most can't equip them, including my FemShep. That was dumb and broke SOD.
How hard would it have been to throw in some pistol/shotgun/sniper animatics? Lazy.
They did the same type of thing in ME1. Shepherd was always breaking out the generic pistol, whether the situation called for it or not, and Ashley and Kaiden would pop up in their original armors, etc.