Sorry, coming late to the thread, so I have only read the initial post and this last page. Nevertheless, here's my take on the subject:
Best RPG ever: BG1 (for some strange reason I hated BG2, played it 1/3 through, then went into god mode and rushed to the final, ignoring all side quests. Go figure. ) BG1 was also my first CRPG game.
DnD CRPG's I own and like (-ed) to play:
Icewind Dale 2
NWN 1 + Expansions (coming from BG1, I thought it was a silly, dumbed down game at first, but it grew on me. )
NWN2 + Expansions
othere RPGs I own and like (-ed) to play:
Gothic Universe
The Witcher EE
Sacred
Divine Divinity
On the dumbing down of CRPGs in general: I think one major factor is that the age requirement has gone down to age +12 for most of them. It has something to do with companies not wanting to frustrate the kids with insane difficulty settings.
About Dragonage: I'm looking forward to this. I think it has great potential to be a great game, but I have to reserve my judgement until the game is released. The few trailers I've seen so far, look really good.
As far as Obsidian is concerned, I only have played NWN2 and MotB and I'm looking forward with excitement to SoZ. Luckily for me, I bought NWN2 almost a year after release, so I avoided most of the initial bugs (started playing at patch 1.06). I'm pretty sure the game would have been less buggy at release, if they were given more development time (about a year more or so), but I don't think it was their call to make. One thing I know, however, is that they are really dedicated to the NWN2 franchise, they listen to their customers, and they do their best to improve the game. Good enough for me.