No, wisdom, intelligence and charisma were pretty crap.
"No"? "No" what? Where do you contradict me?
The manual stated wisdom affected saves but it didnt (its only use was bonus priest spells - in other words, useless except for a mage casting wish). The manual stated that intelligence effected the level of the spells you could cast but it didnt until the EE versions.
So you are saying wisdom is very useful for clerics and to a (very limited degree) for wizards. You are also saying that int was a requirement for wizards. Btw, you are missing its usefulness when battling mindflayers, since high int increases your survivability against them.
So those stats are useful despite bugs(?) without which they'd been even more useful.
...
Wait, weren't you trying to argue that they're not useful?
Strength was made meaning less by various items and was only meaningful above a score of 15.
So it was meaningful, and if you wanted it high (without having a high natural stat) it required you to sacrifice an item that could be used on another character and an item-slot that could have held an alternative beneficial item. Items which you know nothing about without meta-knowledge.
Con was useless above 16 for nonwarriors.
So high con was useful.
Dex was the only stat useful for everyone at various levels.
That's a plain lie since you yourself correctly claim otherwise.
Races were implemented laughingly badly in the IE games. The only reason to play a half elf was to be an OP cleric/ranger. Half-elf fighter? Why? Just be a gnome. The only reason to be a human was race gated classes (paladin, etc). Really really shitty, imo.
Advantages and disadvantages. Without meta-knowledge you have no idea which class might or might not be "OP". You have yet to counter anything I said. Btw, I never played a gnome in BG2, but plenty of fighters, so...
(And you play human for dual-classing, ffs. Everybody knows that. Pfft.)
Not to mention that finding out which classes/builds might become especially powerful on a second playthrough can also be part of the charm.
As far as items, the biggest offender here is the holy avenger
Which you know nothing about before you play the game. Which I personally also never found "that awesome", though I kept Keldorn around for it. (And it for him.) And using it also means, you're not using Cromfaer with the same character, which I gathered was such a huge issue for you.
Wait, are you saying there are several good items that you can't all use at the same time?
See above.
and other monty haul itemization is at fault here as well.
Please be more specific.
It's not even that I completely disagree with all the criticisms, it's just that I think you strongly exagerate, the alternative has to be "better", and so far many of Sawyer's suggestions seem to go in very wrong directions.