To touch on a few of the things you mentioned, yes I'd say our gaming history is similar.
Regarding the current mechanic, it's like the back of your hand once you get used to it. Sometimes I'll swipe two characters together and have the other two apart. Sometimes I'll keep one separate by keeping it in stealth. I take my time with things; I appreciate being able to move the camera about. I keep in mind which characters I have chained together. In short, I pay attention. Something I suspect a few more people could try doing before coming to the forums and coating their words in venom.
To date, I've played an enormous number of hours of this game. In fact, I was happy just playing the game without coming to the forum to explain my opinions. Until recently, when the Stadia patch didn't update at the same time as the Steam patch. That finally convinced me to join the discussion here so I could ask about the update.
Then I got a firsthand glimpse of some of the local characters monopolizing the conversation. I heard some of the ideas being pushed. And in the politest way possible to say this, I wasn't impressed. In fact, I was appalled. So. I decided to stick around for a little while, to offer what feedback I could to the community.
I think this game is wonderful. The writing is exceptional. (And not to be cruel, but I'm amazed at the number of people who can barely put together a paragraph who feel cavalier enough to assure everyone else that the writing is awful.)
I'd say it's easily the best game I've played since Troika's 2003 Temple of Elemental Evil, and really, I'd consider this a modern day improvement of that very game, in terms of sound, visual appeal, and overall mechanic.
It definitely makes me curious about the Stadia experience and whether that is indeed different. One of the main issues I've noted elsewhere (which is for sure a UI issue for me, independent of the chain or anything having to do with movement per se) is that the cursor is not responsive when interacting with the various UI elements. All the UI elements, not just the portraits used in chaining or unchaining, but for actions, inventory, the hotbar, spellcasting etc. Basically everything that isn't a direct selection on the main game/environment screen itself. Then other aspects of the movement system intrude onto this experience too and exacerbate the frustration, as it seems to require several more clicks and interactions with the UI than I'd think would be necessary. The quick swipe left or right you've described, isn't what occurs for me. The click intensity is too low, the drag apart or together fails if not timed correctly. More often I have to attempt the same thing twice to succeed, and then when I do, something else will hang or wig out or require a cancelation or a double click, click into gamescreen, or some targeting snafu there.
If neglecting the chain entirely, then of course many random things will happen as a result of pathing woes, but managing the chain itself is so cumbersome that it rarely feels worth it, as all this is generally occurring during non combat situations or just basic exploration. For example the cancel action or selection in order to initiate new action or selection, the need to drag, and again just the camera needing to be managed while all this is going on, and then I'm just puzzled by it. Like couldn't it just be WASD for movement then with an orbital cam? I'm not sure that any of this would necessarily translate, if you were to just watch me stream the gameplay, except that it might appear sometimes more erratic or that the camera might not be in the position you might expect, or that the play is maybe just slower and inelegant. Though I guess you might hear some groaning or a few rage quits that might indicate where a frustration was occurring, but otherwise it might appear smooth, even though it's definitely not lol. Nothing about it is very zen for me. I can't tune out the UI and simply use it the way I'd prefer, it's always in the forefront and something I'm battling against rather than feeling like it's working with me, or for me hehe.
Maybe I should have bought the game on Stadia, if the experience there is smoother. I also played TOEE when it released and BG3 reminded me of it in some ways, though I think Troika did a much better job of implementing the casual movement, as I never had any issues like I do with BG3 in that game. I'd still prefer this game to look and behave more like BG1/2 than TOEE, but I've accepted the turn based character and overriding 3d cinematic aspect are pretty immovable now, though for that I'd still rather have a driving mode for exploration like DA in that case. It would not be my preference for a Baldur's Gate III, but it would at least allow me to engage with most of the content more readily. I have fewer issues with movement within combat, it's not the sort of RTS control scheme I'd like for a tactical game but I can make it do what it needs to do for the most part. I could settle there pretty easily if the other basic issues I have with non com and exploration and selection were handled like in a standard driving view.