To me, an NPC is essentially the same thing as a trap, puzzle, monster, or magic item. They are simply another asset in my toolbox for crafting obstacles and opportunities to challenge my players.
As someone who also sucks at the “lovable characters” thing this is a nice set of ideas. Particularly avoiding names- it’s a weird idea until you realize that 99% of the time no one cares by the next session. The only time I think names are useful is if it’s hard to refer to them otherwise, like “the brother of the chick that Strahd keeps chasing”. I suppose under your habits that NPC probably wouldn’t exist, actually.
Followers giving PCs explicitly bad suggestions is actually a SUPER good idea. Make your players feel like they’re making decisions for themselves without necessarily realizing that you’re steering them.
Contacts existing on a “Shrodinger’s Cat” basis, yeah, I’m stealing that. Mythras is very interested in a character’s relationships to the point of having tables to figure out how many [X relationship] you have, which slots into this idea perfectly. Since that includes rivals, maybe rivals are contacts that the GM reserves the right to introduce. Heck, even family members could be handled that way, in the sense that players seriously don’t need to come up with their whole family tree which is kinda what Mythras wants of them. It only comes up if it comes up. Me just knowing that they’ve got a cousin on their Dad’s side is ammunition for me to make interesting scenarios happen, and if I want to use that info, then we can come up with something.
I often over develop NPCs - this seems like a good way to cut that out but still have interesting scenes for my players.
