I take 20 steps and have to go back to help my followers catch up or find me. I tell them to wait, they get into mischief or don't listen at all. I take a short cut over some rocky bluff and across the brook, and my NPC starts whining about getting their boots wet and decides to go find a bridge. WTF!?
About half my time hunting for souls to trap is spent babysitting my followers. I'm fairly weak without the help though, so what's a mage to do?

Hi, I'm a wood elf mage... now accepting applications for advlt care and daytime supervision of your loved ones.

They'll catch up eventually

Yeah they do that...its annoying you think you lose them.

They're annoying as heck, kill your companion and go alone like I did.

Could be worse. Could be a horse that runs off to right a dragon...or rabbit then disappears then all of a sudden you get teleported someplace and there your damn horse is.

You will meet up with your horse any time you fast travel.

I love how whenever I look back to see that they're about 30 yards behind me casually walking, then they notice me glaring at them and break into a run to catch up. I think it gives them personality.

I don't worry too much as they're not very useful anyway, just nice to bring a buddy along.

Stupid horses... I had a horse that glitched so that every time I dismount, he would immediately start walking forward and wouldn't stop. Needless to say, he wandered into a set of ruins and got himself kilt by the local frost troll population. I refuse to fast travel, so I spent every step back to civilization cursing the stupidity of my wayward mount... My current character has a policy of making sure to come to a full stop and to quicksave before dismounting. So far, I have not had my mount glitch again, and have had much better success keeping him alive. I tend to use an abundance of caution when approaching ruins, as I don't even fast travel to respawn my horse. If he runs away in fright, I make myself be responsible for following him, even if I am in combat, or for taking the time to search the wilderness for him afterwards...

Which reminds me, where's my freaking horse armor!!!

Speaking of random horse happenings, I was wandering in the snowy area southeast of Winterhold, and suddenly had a dead horse fall out of the sky and land in front of me. No idea where he came from, but I laughed for quite a while, that somebody else in Tamriel was having worse luck with their horses than I! He probably belonged to the mage you see that dies outside of Seyda Neen, and was another victim of the infamous Scroll of Icarian Flight...

True

seriously though, if their pathfinding skills are bad enough that I lose them, will they turn up again when I go through a door or it "auto saves" ?

Also... where do you get the horse? Do you have to buy one?