Congrats on your playthrough! It was a chap from my old AD&D group from almost 25 ago who invited me to play Baldur's Gate 3. I played neither BG 1 or 2, because I didn't have a proper gaming PC back then, and I tried to avoid any spoilers for BG3 to keep suspense and sense of wonder. My current group never switched to 3e or later D&D versions, not because of ThAC0 or BAB semantics, but because there is no compatibility for existing campaigns, like when TSR went from 1e > 2e. The combat systems lack finesse and realism compared to 2e Player's Option, although we did adapt the F/R/W saves. There were major changes to the campaign world that not only suffered from poor writing, but also lacked any attempt of an explanation beyond "Vecna destroyed the multiverse", e.g. the Forgotten Realms suddenly had the Greyhawk/standard elf subtypes instead of sun, moon and green elves, etc. Also, about half of the spellbook was recategorised as transmutations because the new owners apparently didn't understand the schools of magic. Those were just too many construction sites to justify buying into 3rd edition. You can criticise the TSR editions for being way more restrictive and less rewarding to players. Derived from tabletop wargames and heavily inspired by the Lord of the Rings, magic is rare, and even a simple healing potion is hard to come by. TSR's stance was that this is necessary to balance the game. One often heard line of criticism with later editions is lack of balance in higher levels. Luckily, video games, series, and movies showed us a better way. We therefore kept the 2nd Edition rules and FR-campaign setting but expanded and modified them a lot. Magic becoming more readily available and people coming to terms with things like flying ships and public teleport areas in cities actually served as a nice campaign background. We've advanced the campaign timeline from 1367 to 1375 in our parallel-universe Abeir-Toril.
After enjoying the movie Honor Among Thieves, it was due time to give 5e a chance. It was also a good opportunity to catch up on githyanki/illithid matters, since I always liked the scenario, but never had a good use for it in my own campaigns. One really nice experience early on in BG3 was that it actually felt like it's 120 years later. There are way more tieflings, half-orcs are more accepted, githyanki don't get attacked on sight in a human settlement and all the high fantasy and steampunk aspects also felt like progress and natural development instead of a break of continuity.
