Trying to pick five NPCs to travel with your fighter? Here's what I would do, given the fact that you detest Jaheira so -- I like her, and will be keeping her myself).
Start with Nalia. At least one mage is indispensible, and she'll lead you to your stronghold. Once you have said stronghold, she has a number of follow-on subplots. Also, I find her combination of altruism and elitism amusing.
Minsc is just too much fun to leave out, and opens at least one major quest pathway for you. Minsc leads the pack in the favorite NPC poll by a margin as huge as Minsc himself. He's also an excellent tank, and at about the eleventh level he can start picking up extra healing spells for you.
You gotta have a healer, and in the absence of Jaheira, Aerie fills that bill well. Also, she becomes Minsc's Witch, and works well with him. Nalia seems to be friendly with her, too. If you put Aerie in armor she can't cast mage spells (although you can load her up with Identifies and so forth, keeping Nalia's spellbook completely free for combat spells) but she can fight reasonably well. Or, you can take her out of the armor and have her cast alongside Nalia, also a pretty good combo, provided that your sixth party member can melee.
You need a thief. Don't worry about Imoen for now and keep Yoshimo. He's the best thief among the NPCs, and Nalia, while a marvellous mage, is at best a mediocre thief. Yoshimo is also fun in terms of plot.
The last choice is the most difficult, as it should be. Jaheira does have a lot of plot connected to her, but I wouldn't be surprised if several of the others do too.
A lot of folks just love Viconia, and quite apart from the romantic element (and just being able to ogle that portrait) she does have a lot to recommend her. Like Aerie, she can make a good third fighter. I haven't gotten to the later chapters either, but considering that she was exiled from a Drow city, I imagine that there is plenty of subplot ahead for Viconia. You may have to work on keeping your reputation to no more than 18 with this option, though.
Give Keldorn Firecam the Holy Avenger and watch him go to town. Since I'm playing a paladin myself, I haven't recruited him, so I don't know about his plotlines.
Another possibility that I've heard strongly recommended is Mazzy, but I haven't met her yet.
I think overall that the way to go, absent Jaheira, is..
Minsc
Yoshimo
Aerie
Nalia
Viconia
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