I have a hard time believing the OP has been playing RPGs since the 80s and is a fan of the BG games, with his complaints in this thread. Getting to an area where he died quickly because he wasn't high enough level? That's old school RPG right there. (BTW, if you use the oil barrels to your advantage in that orc area, you can pretty much 1 shot the entire band of orcs, including the boss at level 3 easily. Straight up toe-to-toe combat isn't always the best way to fight). Not having a detailed step by step quest log? Old school again. Talking to each NPC, picking up notes, reading what is in the journal, etc gives you all the information you need to move throughout the game. Not seeing stats on mobs? The Loremaster skill tells you that's what it does, raise it. There is no grinding in this game, following the story and quests moves you along in levels quickly enough.
Sadly, the last few generations of games have been so dumbed down and/or use level scaling mobs that I think people have forgotten how to play a proper RPG anymore. Folks are so used to basically having arrows pointing them to the next objective, they've forgotten how to figure things out for themselves. This game does hearken back to games of old and does it well. Some thinking outside the box makes this game so much fun.
