Not the clone, no. Reskin I believe it's usually called.
(…)
With BG3, there's clearly more difference in the most important part of the engine which is visual / cinematic, and the rest is... renamed and re-drawn?
That’s even further from the truth. Even if BG3 was build in the same engine (which it isn’t - clearly a lot has been added), using the same ruleset it would still be a new campaign, with new characters, quests, areas, writing and conquest. While tutorial in both games happens on a ship, those ships have different layouts, content and items.
Ruleset, unlike UFOs, also is fundamentally different. Do I need to list all? % to hit, advantage, per rest abilities, rest system, camp and minicamp and list could go on and on.
The most one can accuse BG3 of, is feeling like a sequel to D:OS2 rather then BG3 but even that has some caveats.