1. I think the BG3 is terribly fun and I really liked the escape the ship starting point.
2. J.E. Sawyer is brilliant and he's a nerd's nerd. He's right about FR lore, tattoos, hand built bikes, armor, hand painted backgrounds, walls of text, isometric view and a dozen other things I'm forgetting. But, otherwise, the OP is right -- J.E. is wrong when it comes to wizards. IWD2 / PoE were really about "this is how I would have made BG3".
3. Spell casting is nerfed. Sacred flame / hold person / sleep / fireball are all nerfed in BG3 because the enemies have 2 to 3 times the HP they are supposed to have according to the monster manual. Why use sacred flame instead of a bow? The bow is much more likely to hit. Why have a wizard at all? Arcane tricksters and eldritch knights have the same advantages without the disadvantages.
Wizards are glass cannons. Only BG has reduced the power of the cannon but kept the glass.
And this is even worse with Gale because he a) eats the best stuff and b) kills your party when he dies.
Now I do have a possible answer to why they made Gale the way they did.
I'm predicting that Gale will eventually get an "idol of resurrection" type ability where you send him into the front lines just so he can die --- which is fun if you liked that part of DOS2 tactics where dying was often a good party strategy but not so great if you want to play a D&D wizard.
