I see this in a different manner. I know, I'm a broken disk for someone, but it wouldn't be fun otherwise. I'm not talking about us, I'm talking about the devs. Think about it. You spent your life working your ass and building your skills, becoming among the bests of the bests, up to the point that you have finally the chance to give your words about something and suddendly you are just a gear because you have to implement the things as RAW as possible. It would be boring, it would't have sense to have worked so much for not being able to give your vision about something you love.
If everybody just translated everything as it is, we would never have Kubrick's The Shining.
Interesting perspective.
First of all, Larian's designers have plenty of space to express themselves. None of BG3 is procedural (maybe some loot drops here and there?); every encounter is hand-crafted. Surely Larian's designers can let loose there.
Second of all, I wouldn't personally characterize Larian's designers as "the best of the best". Now, I understand that to be subjective as any example of a legendary game designer would be followed by examples of legendary games they designed (ie Shigeru Miyamoto made Mario, Richard Garfield made Magic the Gathering) and you could say "Swen Vincke made BG3!". However, Larian's track record of rolling back decisions they had though would improve the game indicates their flair for reinterpretation isn't as on point as they would like.
In conclusion, I see BG3 more like The Shining as reimagined by Christopher Nolan : excellent, idiosyncratic, flawed in spots.
