In Act 1 there is the Everburn Blade and the Sword Of Tyr - both greatswords. There are also a couple of decent greataxes. I'm just arrived in Moonrise Towers and have a greatsword from the creche and a halberd which I bought recently - both are upgrades from the Act 1 gear.
In EA it was easy enough to be level 5 by the time you meet the githyanki patrol and it still is. It is easy enough to hit level 6 before reaching the shadow-cursed lands, i.e. while still in Act 1 (I hit L6 in the monastery IIRC). How you do 100 hours and are still at level 5 is beyond me.
For someone who claims to have played RPGs for over 30 years you seem somewhat ignorant of the fact that the character progression is largely down to the 5e rules rather than Larian per se.
Your #3 doesn't make sense. You start off by complaining about the 'inadequate level of difficulty' then immediately complain about a fight you could not win. I'm not entirely sure which fight you are describing. The most difficult fight I can think of in the Gauntlet of Shar is with Balthazar in Shadowfell. I certainly can't think of any fight with 'dozens' of enemies.
I haven't entered the Gauntlet yet in this run and I'm currently level 8.
To me the map and mini-map are the best improvements Larian made to the game. The origin DOS-style maps were terrible and completely defeated the purpose of a map.
