I'm happy to chat ^.^ The feedback is good to chew over, though my main point of encouragement was to make sure you send it along to Larian directly too.
Gale: Yeah, it sounds like your main issue was the resting. In your first play, you rested enough to not miss out on any of Gale's hooks, and had him in the party long enough to trigger his 'respect actions' count, and thereby got all of his scenes (You know what I'm referring to when I reference the weave scene, where you do magic with him?). In your subsequent play-throughs, you didn't rest as much, and almost certainly missed a scene or two from him as a result, locking yourself out of his romance path. It's a much discussed thing about Gale – his invitation is the most fiddly to trigger by far.
I have indeed not seen that line from Wyll, and I could believe that it's one I've inadvertently missed – I find the mean and snarky lines the hardest ones to click on, even when I'm playing a crueller or more evil character. Absolutely bug report the contradiction, would be my advice – if you're lucky, you'll get a bug-team response that will either acknowledge looking into it, or confirm that it's correct. If they tell you the latter, then we can presume it's a deliberate lie on his part.
Regarding the grove scene: I did a double check of this, and the scene runs slightly differently now, to how I first recall it. In my earlier plays, the halfling line bypassed the need to make an insight check and a persuade/intimidate/punch check, and skipped straight to 'she's right, the bickering is pointless', and ended the conversation at the 'at least we agree on that' line. Now, in my latest test, it just acts like any of the other three lines above it, and dumps you straight into the insight and diffusion checks, like the others... so... it's now another false choice that does nothing, apparently? Huh.
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Are you meaning that you'd prefer it if you visually always 'hit' what you aim for, and just dealt zero damage if you failed to actually meet its AC?
Okay, so, there are a number of reasons why that simply cannot work, mechanically... If they did something like that, then it would unbalance the game further (increasing hp is not a valid solution for a swathe of other reasons that are interconnected), and more to the point, you'd then also need to rewrite a truly massive portion of the rules further to accommodate for the change that that you literally always hit and always deal a minor amount of damage. At that point it wouldn't even resemble D&D any more... not that Larian's rendition is very compelling as is, but accommodating this change and balancing the system for it would take it so far away that there'd be nothing left but the IP itself.
Your wood elf can absolutely shoot arrows at a mountain all day – and they will absolutely shoot those arrows, and those arrows will definitely strike the rugged rocky face of that mountain. What they will NOT do, is any damage to that mountain; they will not, ever, score a successful blow against the mountain.
You've mentioned a language barrier a couple of times – perhaps something of that nature is happening here? Just because you didn't successfully 'hit' a target ('Hit' Mechanically – your attack roll did not meet or exceed the ac of the target), doesn't necessarily mean that you missed the creature entirely. Your wood elf may certainly have shot that ogre – and indeed, the arrow struck the ogre. It struck his shoulder, deflected off his thick hide and clattered off into the rafters. Your elf absolutely hit ('Hit' standard language – the literal arrow physically connected with the target; it hit it) the ogre; their aim was just fine... they just didn't successfully score a blow against it, through no real fault of their own, potentially.
Those are the base rules of the system we're working with, no matter how much Larian stretches it; if you're looking to change that, at an actual mechanical level, then you're looking for a different game that isn't D&D.
BG3 as presented at the moment doesn't really convey this well, since everything, even very slow and clumsy things, just 'phase dodge' ranged attacks, and it looks silly.
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Goblins: I have to ask – what 'general goblin concept'? Whose 'general goblin concept'? Because here, we're talking about goblins as defined and described in the forgotten realms setting and lore as written by WotC, which is very clear about the fact that Goblins have alchemists, apothecaries and priests, social structure and hierarchy, and are, very much and every bit as capable as humans, on the averages, in matters of intelligence – they tend to have fewer opportunities, but they are no less capable. It might not be your personal conception of goblins, but your individual conception is not relevant here – these are the goblins that exist in the forgotten realms, this universe and this game; they're not any less intelligent or capable than humans on average, and can absolutely follow any higher order pursuits that humans can. That's simply a fact of the lore for these goblins, in this setting.
I did talk about statistics, yes, but the statistics reflect the species averages and they align with the established lore... And yes, Sazza IS a person (within the fiction of the game space ^.^), and it says more about someone who would claim that she's not, based on her race and species, than such a judgement would about her.
Goblins are also a playable race, though not in BG3 as of yet; they can be wizards, clerics, bards and any number of other things too, just like anyone else. (On the averages, they're also smarter than kobolds, one to one, who are also a playable race)
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No sorceress in game yet – coming, supposedly. Just to be clear, regarding wizards; it's not just my personal opinion on how to interpret them – I don't want to seem like I'm talking hot air on the matter. That's just the functional lore for magic users in the forgotten realms setting (and most D&D realm-spaces)... It does sometime catch people off guard to be reminded that the most 'archetypal' magic user in the setting, the wizard, is the one that literally has no innate magical ability at all... being a wizard is hard; in-universe, it's probably the hardest thing to do out of all of the options.
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Paladins: I feel saying 'this particular soul' is not a correction on 'any soul she tells them to'. If Zariel had directed them to a thug in Neverwinter, they'd have done it. If she'd directed them to a noble in Mintarn, they'd have done it. If she'd directed them to a milk maid who lived on the outskirts of Luskan, they'd have justified it to themselves and done it... and when Zariel says 'Okay, but...” and sends them after three more souls, they'll justify it to themselves, and they'll do it.
Though, if it makes any of this feel any better, Karlach is intended to be another companion, as you can tell from her extremely overblown and utterly ridiculous mary-sue origin story... so siding with the paladins now will probably save you a handful of distasteful and unenjoyable conversations down the track.
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Fencing ^.^ Spoilers for off topic...
Off topic at this point, but... No, the mail glove is a parrying glove, and you Never grip or grab with it. For dagger-wielding, you use it in an aggressive way, but you still use it to deceive the momentum or motion of your opponents and divert or deflect it subtly, in order to open up space in what would otherwise be a solid guard or stance. For actual parrying as well, but the action in practice flows together. Properly used, a parrying glove can deflect a sharpened blade safely enough with little risk to your hand. I've not worked against spear directly, but against staff I have, and many of the principles of solid staff work get passed into good spear work as well.
For formal fencing, I'm a foil kinda lady... I really don't care for sabre at all, and epee never really suited me. I'm actually a very small woman, but lightning quick and good with covering distance faster than expected of my reach and size, so foil suites me just fine.
