Thanks for all the replies - some good advice and food for thought. I guess the discussion has helped me focus on my main question, which is really one of magnitude - how do you quantify the impact an NPC ally has on your session? Of course you can handwave everything, but I'm looking for something a little more structured, perhaps along the lines of the pass / fail cycle.
I'm thinking NPC allies have significant and exceptional abilities (etc) in the same way adversaries do, with an implied level of competence (score) relative to the PCs. So you might have a powerful NPC ally who's Very High competence, one who's pretty much on a par with the PCs who's Moderate, and so on - giving you a rough indicator of ability scores for gauging assists, augments, ability scores when acting as sidekicks or followers, etc. I'm not sure how or even if this should tie into the pass / fail cycle, except perhaps to derive from the session's base resistance.
Incidentally, I always have players make NPC ally rolls in my games, in as much as they're needed at all, always have done. Happily HQ2 reduces the need even for that. Enough to be keeping track of as it is! :-)
Cheers!
Sarah
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