Like Frank, the SMG using heavy or Pablo the heavy operative? Nah, I'd rather be the man of 16 bodies.....
Naming gives a sense of ownership and connection with the player. I'm fine if naming our characters was existent or not, but preferably I'd use the naming system just to crack myself up when I was deciding who to use for the next mission.
Would be weird not being able to, but really 16 characters, unless you want to hog names don't see why you would need to anyway.
So you can leave some set up with their abilities and load-out catered to specific situations. That way you can just pick a prepared character without having to fiddle around in the menus so much.