Thought I'd post my overall first impressions here. I've only played around with the beta for a few hours so far, and I did run into that nasty bug where journal entries were wiped after loading from in-game (vs the main menu). Restarting was obviously not the most fun.
That issue aside, I'm all nostalgic and giddy over how I "feel" playing this game. It's a throwback to those Infinity Engine games in so many good ways, without a lot of the disappointments and frustrations I experienced when trying to play those exact games now. Even the Enhanced Edition of BG2 feels too stale to hold my attention for long.
Looking forward to seeing more of how PoE progresses throughout beta and release.