I think it would be cool if everyone started out with a slightly different pool of starting characters. Though maybe 5 of them would always take special unlocking.
So, for example I boot up the game and have access to character #5, #3, #10, #15, #19, #22, and #8. But my friend starts up and has #20, #21, #22, #1, #2, #5 and #7.
The benefit of this would be the huge amount of character diversity amongst people playing online. This would benefit short term and long term for many reasons. Every new player would not be limited to a small cast. People might not ever even try every character. They might focus especially on the first standard 7 and only ever really get into 5 of the others. But if we all start with slightly different crew then artificial diversity is achieved.

