I only bothered to talk to the boat people the first time. There's no need to talk to anyone on subsequent playthroughs. Still, though, I don't appreciate having to pick up tons of 1 gold junk items.
Additionally, now that a proper intro has been added, it makes the subsequent beach scene even more boring. There's too much dead air for such a large fraction of the island. It could probably use another combat encounter somewhere in it with a couple level 1 enemies.
And is Larian ever going to add in more waypoints? There needs to be one at the armory (only usable after combat ends) and one at the east end.