How do you know whether a deviation was necessary? I mean, it may seem that way but we don't really know the thinking that went into these things and we don't know anywhere near as much about what was and what wasn't necessary for things to work as Larian does.

I'm not trying to justify everything they've done, but anyone with developer experience has probably tried receiving those "helpful" comments from third parties, suggesting the "obvious" solution of "just do this and that", which you probably would have done, if it was actually feasible to do.