Yeah. If you like Hrongar you could try the nord housecarls or hirelings that are similar to him, but they won't ask you to unsheathe them unfortunately. Neloth is simply too bad ass to be a "follower" of anyone.
NPCs I wish could be followers? Anyone from the Thieves Guild. I mean, not even ONE in game. Surely the new recruits would want to follow me or the other lesser members or even Karliah herself. Are there any altmer followers? I can't think of any right now. Should be at least one mage willing to follow me, maybe at the college. I don't have many complaints, however, the game has ~50 followers it's unheard of.
Any decent modder could extrapolate lines from his mountain of dialogue to create a really good follower mod. I'd love to hear "Here, I brought this for you" every time I asked to trade items with him.
Or him telling you "I have gone to some pains to ensure that I am immune to many forms of control" whenever you ask him to do something. (Sarcastic/Ironic)
And when asked to follow "I don't have time to go traipsing all over Solstheim"... Once again, sarcastic and ironic.