I think pretty much all of the issues you mention are valid (except maybe the mod manager system, maybe) and I do agree with you on several of them. Especially the stuff about the movement mechanic and the custom PC being more centralto the game. And I'd definitely love to see rewards for not using the tadpole. Ideally I think it would be a situation where the tadpole gives you a lot of immediate benefits, but later in the game we're rewarded for holding back and resisting. Typically I like to roleplay by using the tadpole once early on for something because my character doesn't really understand what they're feeling, but once they does, they never use it again. It seems heavily telegraphed that if we keep using the tadpole, we're going to pay a heavy price for it, so I look forward to seeing what that is.
It might comfort you to hear that difficulty settings are probably only not here now because it's early access and letting players tweak the difficulty a lot before the game is even done sounds like a recipe for confusing data. That being said, there's no promise that we'll get something as comprehensive as the pathfinder games, which I consider leaps and bounds ahead of literally any other crpg I've ever played, so definitely worth sounding off about that more to make sure Larian hears it. Also you actually can react harshly at least to Wyll making a pact with a devil, telling him that you'd never have made such a deal-I can't remember it word for word. And when you find out Astarion is a vampire, you can kill him then and there. Not sure how much harsher it can get. I genuinely can't recall what you can say to Shadowheart about being Sharran.
As someone who's still pretty unfamiliar with the original games, I'm curious what would you consider a meaningful connection. I haven't made it through the first game yet, though I've been spoiled on most of the major plot points.
