1) Hmh, true... Never noticed either Though I have to disagree on OC part. NWN2 IMO had very, very much party interaction
2) You get stat bonuses and other boosts (they too sometimes, e.g
if you have enough influence with them.
To give some criticism: Although new cameras are vastly better than anything in NWN's before and strategic camera mode works great and character mode too mostly, latter has some problems in interiors. At worst this was in Sunken City where I had to play in strategic camera mode all the time if I didn't want to get lost all the time. Same in some dungeons.
Overall, however, I don't have that much to criticize about. That's my biggest annoyance yet in game.
edit: To my knowledge MCA did Gann, and when thinking about Kaelyn's dialogue there certainly is "Avellonean" (yay new word) feel in it. I also believe Saunders and Designers (Husges, Fenstermaker etc.) have done at least some dialogue - didn't in Fallout's Designer of certain quest/area also deal with most of writing related to it. "Designer" was Avellone's title for this and he definetly has written something, so I guess others have too. Although I'm sure great majority of writing and dialogue came fron Ziets's hand, after that propably Avellone had most writing with all of his mighty "Creative Lead Director" or something title.
Anyway it doesn't matter who wrote what and how much. MotB proves OE has numerous highly skilled writers in their team
By the way it looks like Mitsoda didn't have anything to do with this game though - and IIRC he is creative lead for OE's third project. I guess this means this third project definetly isn't meeting New Jersey's end if its lead writer is busy