I didn't really see it as an exploit: using stealth to get there felt like a legit expression of Larian's "several ways of doing the same thing" philosophy, even if I did later feel a bit off using the pyramids to cross an inconvenient river in Luculla a bit later.
I agree - it isn't an exploit. If you spend hundreds of hours you find different ways of doing things. I would always sneak over to pick up the Trenebrium book from that weird village and then spend hours save scumming whichcraft to get unlock scrolls for the armoury chests until I realized it was pointless. That *is* an exploit but if I want to rearrange my inventory so I can spend 2 hours mixing pixie dust with a bit of paper more efficiently I'm not hurting anyone else.
I miss crafting and hope it makes an appearance soon.
In this game though I'm stuck on 2 blocking areas at the moment - you can't really move until you get to level 4 and the purging wand doesn't work unless you've removed your collar. Both force you into doing tasks you'd rather skip or playing an origin you'd rather not just for the dialogue options.
