So after fighting through the underdark and killing a bunch of hook horrors to get sussar bark for an out of the way side quest with non-obvious crafting I get.... a +1 dagger, like the same thing I can buy at any vendor for a couple hundred gold?
Maybe I'm missing something, it is blue so maybe there's more too it? Seems lame, but I may not know everything about it yet.

the weapon also silences them iirc. Not that it matters, enemies only cast acid vial and alchemists fire ^.^

I missed the silence text, I'll go back and look at it. That would have been useful for the hag!

I don't think it says it. I was like wtf is this thing, its trash, and hit my party to see if it did anything haha. Then was like silence? any caster im hitting is going to be dead in the first hit anyway. Sad I couldnt let gale eat it.

I missed that as well. Makes sense with how the sussur flowers work though.

The Silence on-hit effect is amazing, look beyond the EA content a bit and think how effective this will be in later stages of the game as a swap-in weapon for your rogue, ranger or fighter.
Anytime you encounter a cleric or paladin type enemy, you won't need to worry about them buffing, debuffing or healing - at all. The way the Silence effect works right now, from my testing, appears to be without a DC to resist which is insane. I cannot imagine anything more oppressive than removing half of an enemy's kit without them having the opportunity to make a saving throw. Paired with items like the Staff of Arcane blessing that gives 2d4 to attack rolls instead of 1d4, missing attacks seems almost impossible.

@OP, you may have missed other magic items as well - Mystra's boots appear mundane, but give you Feather Fall for instance. In EA, I suggest you equip and check what happens before you get disheartened

There seems to be a lot of gear hidden and out of the way that would be really good further down the line, like the Poisoner's Robe you get from the phase spider matriarch that makes all poison attacks deal 1d4 more damage. Unfortunately the majority of these show up after you are done with the main content in EA, so they are not that useful and not at all needed right now.

That honestly depends on how you play - you can run straight for the Staff of Arcane blessing if you want, nothing is stopping you other than the Goblin fight outside the Grove.
With all the free travel you get it's not like you cannot just *puuuf* back to the grove and continue the main quest from there. You just need a few casts of invisibility and feather fall.

My meme game has not been updated since 1999

Shove should break invisibility lol, what a crazy oversight. You can clear entire boss encounters like this now.

Hehe yes, that's why I edited the post immediately after - didn't want to spoil the game further for everyone else.
What's worse is that shove in BG3 automatically succeeds if the enemy is not expecting it. I.e. if you have hidden you have 100% success chance regardless of your strenght, athletics vs the target.

Can you craft other items with that Sussur bark or just weapons? Works on armor maybe? Anything else?

It works on 3 weapons only, nothing else.
Dagger, Sickle and Greatsword.

Ok, thanks. Kinda shame, it would be nice if it had more uses.

btw, down in the tower i get a glitch where the sussur antimagic effect stays on my characters even after i get rid of the flowers. Ill see if it stays after reloading.

- goes away after resting in camp -

That's if running behind enemy lines with a single person, leaving you at risk of dying, who can silence once - if they hit - as opposed to someone just using a silence scroll or casting silence from safety is the wisest choice. It's a pocket strategy at best, probably used against bosses, and will rust on your inventory until you need it. You'll be glad to have it when you do need it, but I think I've used silence like 5 times as a spell. Killing them to death has been more effective, to date.