My favorite follower so far is Calder. He does his job well and he does not sound too bad when he says that he is sworn to carry my burdons.

My Dremora takes down Spriggan Matrons all the time by itself so how is this Spriggan Follower better?

What about when he says "I am your sword and your shield."?

He has not said that to me yet.

LOL if I do not like his tone I will have to put him in his place

I also like that he will not wear the Elven armor that I give to him (I wish he would as it is lighter and better than the Dwarven armor that he will wear)

Followers will wear Armor that is Better in their eyes. He has high Heavy Armor than Light thus making Dwarven better than Elven.

Jordis. I get a kick out of how fascinated she is by caves and wonders what's inside.

My spellsword is close to Lydia, Jordis, Iona, and Brelyna. But his favorite is Ria. He always had his eye on her and after becomming harbinger, returned and buffed her out with enchanted forsworn armor, jewelry and a custom RiaBurner that shimmers from her back as she walks. She is the envy of Jorvaskr. He likes her because she is loyal and down to earth. They have many memorable journeys, and convelesce in his archmage tower after hours. He would marry her if he were not already married and devoted to Senna.
Yes, he is Dibellan. He only rolls with females.

Just started a new female destruction mage who is only level 5. She is avoiding the Bee and Barb until she is at least level 15. She only has eyes for Marcurio as a follower and spouse.

Quite fond of Jordis - she's always seems cheery.

Mjoll and j'zargo.

That's because Dremoras use fire, which Spriggans are weak to, but if you conjure Spriggan Matrons, you almost never will fight Dremoras. At my chars over 50 level, where the boss Draugr and Falmer spawn fairly high level, I noticed conjuring a Spriggan Matron and a Dremora Lord, the Dremora didn't survive as well as the Spriggan Matron. Any enemy using fire will cream her though. Playing a bit today, I had some of the very high level necromancers banish my summoned Dremoras, but they couldn't do it to the Spriggan Matrons. Anyway, I don't claim one is better than the other per se, it just makes it a bit more fun to have more high level summons. I'm going to fool around and try out those Spriggan followers (not summons) in my next play-through, it should be fun seeing how the guards react to a follower that sounds like a tipped over beehive.

What, no one likes Aranea Ienith?

I've had several followers. Of them, Lydia went down in a crowd in a cave, Erik fell fighting Alduin, 3 became Blades, 2 others didn't last long and Aela is stuck in the Temple of Talos in Markarth (this is a tragedy. I'm most upset that the wife is stuck, there). So I finally took Aranea after I had finished the main quest - level 28. She's been awesome. We finished the civil war together. We are working our way through the College of Winterhold and she's done all I've asked of her. We are but the last room shy of completing Labyrinthia.

"but the night mother won't speak to cicero,,,
sweet cicero..."

I never tried her, I guess I should.

Eola is awesome. Despite her dietary proclivities, she has a warm, friendly voice and even makes a great wife. Especially with a few tweaks from Skyrim NPC Editor:
http://steamcommunity.com/id/LazyAltmer/screenshot/649877898952461624/?
http://steamcommunity.com/id/LazyAltmer/screenshot/649878131797893706/?
http://steamcommunity.com/id/LazyAltmer/screenshot/648750789803524778
http://steamcommunity.com/id/LazyAltmer/screenshot/648750789732485510/?

Read down a bit on the page: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Followers

You can use the Wabbajack to level up any follower to your currernt level.

Make sure they turn into an ANIMAL, not anything else. A rabbit, chicken, or crab. Turn them back into themselves, and their level will be whatever yours is.

It really works. My lydia is a tough kill for baddies, and she really helps out taking enemies down.

BTW, it works on xbox and ps3.

I put her in the Blades.

I'm really liking Erik, it was fun to take a virgin out and equip the hell out of him... I understand (from UESP) he was named for a forum member who died a year ago.

First trip I took him to Hag's End, got my Shalidor book from the hagraven up-top outside, parted ways; then he proceeded to kill all the forsworn on the bottom with just an ebony battleaxe I gave him. Went down there and got that cheerful animal to bring him home and equip right proper!

Marcurio.
He never breaks my sneaking, never gets in front of my attacks, and often one-shots mobs before I draw my bow. He also doesn't mind following me when he has to jump like other followers. Plus he knows what he is doing - he always uses fire on Trolls, etc. His drawback is he never uses his enchanted dagger, so no filled soul gems from him.
The number of unique comments he has for all different types of dungeons is my favorite thing about him - and he has one of my favorite Skyrim voices too. His arrogance is not beligerent and is more roguish, and is also justified since he is so powerful. All in all I think Marcurio is one of the more developed characters you can have follow you.

My other favorites are Kharjo who often looted mobs himself and ended up with a collection of staves I didn't give him - and he dual wielded them too. Turned out to be handy since he would often get disarmed.
And Cicero deserves a mention for making me do a double take when he sang about taking a lute and setting a bard on fire.

My favorite companion is http://i1069.photobucket.com/albums/u476/arconacor/TESV2012-03-0116-56-33-69.jpg.

Just joking, my favorite is probably Cicero.

I know, but it still would be nice if he wore it as it is lighter, and that means he can carry more of my stuff.

I have taken the armor off him, he is managing fine. Hopefully I can find some good armor that he will wear, but will not weigh as much as the Dwarven stuff.

Alas, his base armor is rated as 31, afaik, and Elven is 29. Plus Calder is skilled in Heavy Armor. If you are on PC you can remove his default gear and if his only alternative is Elven he should equip it. Note: Followers who are dismissed and regained can sometimes end up with multiple sets of 'invisible' default gear. You can use the console to showinventory and to removeitem {item ID} {number}. There is also an equipitem {item ID} and unequipitem {item ID} to force your follower to equip an item. If you remove all of your follower's invisible default items always leave at least one thing to avoid possible problems with the game generating new sets. You will also run into trouble if you fix this and then dismiss him.

The armor that I was trying to give him was rated as 49. so he should have worn it.

It seems that he will only wear heavy armor over a certain rating. That must also increase as he gets tougher.

Thankfully him just having his default gear is not cauding a problem for him.

I think the problem with followers is that they only recognize what the generic version of gear is, so player enchanted or improved gear is disregarded. They do have the ability to choose whatever their best option is out of all the alternatives, so limiting their options right down to the one you want them to wear should work. Did you try him with Gilded Elven Armor? The base for that is in the thirties, so could beat his standard Steel. But eliminating all his Heavy options may be the only way to get him to equip Light. If you like Erik the Slayer, his preference is for Light Armor. If I give him one of every generic set in the game he'll equip Dragonscale, even over Daedric.

Yup. He just was not interested.

Hopefully I will be able to find something that works.

I once gave a glass helmet to my heavy armour follower and she equipped it, unimproved. So sometimes they do pick light armour over heavy armour. And it even looks good!