I was, but I also think that the original is bad too. It would have been much stronger if it was outright an interactive novel or whatever, but playing it (with the restoration mods) is basically hacking your way through tons of boring encounters to get to any good bits. I should say that I didn't play any IE game at release as NWN was out when I was starting to play D&D and finding games was difficult for a kid without too much money or knowledge. When I did start playing them I had the benefits of tons of mods, so I should note that my BG2 experience is significantly different than someone who played it vanilla at launch.
I have never played without it. What I saw of the kingdom minigame was a lot like the PoE2 ship combat minigame so I ran the hell away as fast as I could. I hope Wrath of the Righteous army minigame is more streamlined and less time consuming.