I wonder what Treco was thinking Warsong

when they made 3 characters that are exactly IDENTICAL to one another.

even to the point that they all end up on the same promotion path: lord -> magic knight.

I know... I remember how in Der Langrisser and Lang 2, there would be characters that start off with more or less the same stats, but there are plenty of good classes that each of them can uniquely become. Also, in DL and L2, there was a much larger degree of character development, something that Thorne, Beyard, and Carleon lacked.

But anyways I always liked Beyard more than the other two... Thorne looks like a fail patriot and Carleon looks like a wannabe Tom Cruise

Was the first of the series. Sure it would been nice if they gave them each one unique class, but this is a very early Srpg. Due to time constraints memory, or budget I could see those being left simply as 3 other commanders with identical routes. I mean Garret and Sabra have all same paths as them too, just they happen have 2 extra classes.

It's easy look back and identify weak spots in the game(the wizard/cleric class tree is odd, Serpent knight needed another class to follow it such as dragon knight, and some other water class with higher stats as it and bishop were like these 2.5 classes while everyone else advanced to 3..), but it's still a great game.