Early on I used Dexter for a while, but eventually he didn't seem to have a niche. I hate having to lose a shot moving him forward, but I hate getting second-rate damage rolls even more. That .45 can't hit much harder than a rifle against Duraplate so he's not much good against top-tier opponents. The extra crits sound like fun though, I dunno. We'll see where I can fit him in.
That's my plan with Doyle too, let him keep his trusty rifle most of the time but give him a plasma/coil gun for the tough ones.
Bud will get his aim up, it's inevitable in my view.
Just got my first tier 6 bounty on day 35 in my current game and naturally it was the hardest variety. Tried it with Bud, Dexter, Doyle, and Ayden and managed to beat it but lost both Bud and Dexter as expected. I had the aim implant on me to guarantee a hit and plasma guns on me, Doyle, and Bud.
Took out the first plasma guy before he could shoot but they killed Bud the next round so it took me 2 rounds to kill the black gunner with the 2nd plasma gun, by which time Dexter was down. I got lucky though and none of my guys missed. With less than a 100% hit rate I suspect I would have lost at least 3 people and might not have won at all.
The tier 5 bounties are no problem at all with only 1 top tier, even the hardest one.
I think if I had a 5th person with 80-90+ aim and a plasma gun instead of Dexter the result would have been the same. That's not enough damage to take out both plasma guys in 1 round so someone is probably going down unless everyone has 150 health + duraplate or the enemy cooperates and spreads the damage around nice and even instead of focus firing on Bud and Dexter...
Tried a few different combinations of mercs on the toughest tier 6 bounty. If I bring either Bud or Dexter with me on any of those 5 opponent tier 6 bounties I lose them every single time. I win the battle, but I lose Bud and/or Dexter in the process. If I have nobody with less than 150 health I have so far never lost anyone.