Empty maps with nothing to explore is bad design. There are no map encounters at least from what I have seen in Act 1. You could argue that there are a few in the Underdark but they seem more like box-ticking by Larian: spectator - tick; bulette - tick; hook horrors - tick.
All those pointless empty jars probably account for a fair whack of the 122GB. That and the unnecessarily convoluted/complicated plot.
I agree with pretty much everything the OP said.
On a related note, I recently watched a vid of a YT-er defending the Emerald Grove against Minthara and her goblin 'army'. No sign of any druid, just the tieflings. I also noted, though the YT-er didn't, that there were two firewine barrels nicely placed on the ramparts to hurl at the goblins who arrive nicely packed within throwing range. There was also another barrel nicely placed to drop on any enemies as they emerged from the passage behind the main gate.
Larian are masters of form over substance - they talk a good game but don't do anything really well. They made a big play of releasing the game ahead of schedule then spend the first post-release week cranking out three hotfixes dealing with almost 500 bugs. They are now up to four hotfixes and the last three have caused havoc with users of the Steam version.
