I was shocked at how many people really thought they had to hurry. Maybe I've been playing games too long, but I thought everyone knew mechanics and history always branch off.
When the game tells you that you need to hurry up because the evil dragon is about to burn the city, you know that you can clear the entire map because it will wait at least until you get closer to the city.
This mechanic is probably older than BG.
If Larian really dared to introduce time limits, the amount of hatred on the forums would quickly catch up with RTWP vs TB