I really want to enjoy this game. The reviews are great, the ratings are great, and I think the people who love it are people like me, who enjoyed the BG series, The Witcher, Morrowind, maybe a few TOEE players too.

But try as I might, I can't seem to get into NWN. A few gameplay issues are really spoiling my experience at the moment, I've searched for help and not really found anything of use.

Issue 1 - My sorcerer tries to open a door or chest. It is locked, so my thief hireling goes to unlock it, which is good. However my familiar and my summoned beast start attacking the chest or door, which they often can't even damage, and will continue to attack even when it has been unlocked. Once my thief unlocked a door, he and my sorcerer main character entered the room into a combat, but my familiar and summon stayed outside and kept attacking the open door...

Setting the pets to 'Stand your Ground' stops them attacking doors/chests, but also stops them following me, which defeats the purpose as they are my sorcerer's bodyguard as such. I have tried hotkeying party commands, but telling them all to Stand your Ground stops the thief from attempting to open the chest also. Is there an efficient way to just get the thief to open the chest without my pets attacking it, and without a major amount of tactic micromanaging? Half a dozen clicks to open just one of the hundreds of chests?!
(I am told that I can speak to my familiar and instruct it not to help. My Pseudodragon definitely does not have that option).

Issue 2 - I am aware you don't issue direct commands, only general orders, and that's fine as the hirelings and summons have their own mind. However I feel their tactics and AI do not make up for that lack of direct control. Case in point, we were fighting a group of convicts, and a mage. I wanted that mage killed first as a priority target, and I got the team to target him initially by firing at him with my crossbow. However after a single round, they disengaged and started fighting against the approaching 'grunt' level enemies, and I couldn't find a way to redirect them against the more lethal, fireball-casting threat instead.
(I am aware these mages can become Invisible, but just to make it clear, they did not use it in this case and so it was not the reason for disengaging. My Pseudodragon has True Sight anyway and can attack invisible targets).

Is there a way to keep my team focused on a specific target, and not to suddenly wander off and attack something else?

Issue 3 - General party micromanagement. Party set to 'Attack Nearest', they promptly raced over a trap that we'd already spotted, and the results were not pretty. I understand I could have stopped them, using Stand your Ground. But I had hoped they'd go around the trap, as there was plenty of room. This is where the lack of direct control hurt the most - with no way to direct targets or assign a movement waypoint, if my enemies had been archers or mages, I would have had to stand around until my thief decided to handle the trap, and then rush the enemy. A wall to wall trap covered by ranged opponents would be an interesting strategic set piece. My party making a beeline over a single trapped tile, not so much.
(You could argue the summoned beast would not necessarily know to avoid the trap, but the thief surely wouldn't stumble over it, and he out of all of them would have known it was there, if my sorcerer was able to spot it)

Tell me, is there a way I can exert a bit more control over them?

Do I need to me more active in my tactics management, with them all hotkeyed? I was hoping it could be a bit more passive, ie, configure them once and that'd work throughout most of the game.

Thanks for anyone who can help, and apologies if I missed something really, really obvious!