Taro94: You're completely correct, I approached Infinity Engine games more times than I remember and always stopped relatively early on, couldn't really force myself to like the party control system. I'll repeat, this is a matter of preference and nothing more. I'm not denying quality of these games, they simply don't float my boat.
Just as a side note, I think NWN, at least in some ways, resembles pen and paper D&D more than Baldur's Gate and the rest (including NWN2). Players in D&D typically control a single character. The point of the game is to roleplay your character (hence the name) and controlling five or more of them really subtracts from the experience for me. As I said, it doesn't feel like a role-playing game to me.
As for your last paragraph, if there's a feature in a game, you are expected to use it. There is full party control in NWN2 and as such its modules are designed with it in mind. A player that doesn't like full party control might be therefore at a disadvantage. This, of course, is still better than Infinity Engine games, where you are forced to control everyone, but it's still something to keep in mind.
I understand there are many different definitions of what is and what is not a true RPG, so I agree that we're using different definitions -- mine is a wider, more encompassing one. I do fully consider NWN1, Skyrim, Gothic, Risen, etc. to be RPGs, but I count the vast number of full-party control games as RPGs as well, like all of the SSI Gold Box D&D games, the Ultima games, the Might and Magic games (not the "Heroes Of" ones), the Wizardry series, etc. To you, single-character games are more like pen and paper because you as a player only play as one character in pen and paper, while to me, full-party games are more like pen and paper because pen and paper games almost always
have and are
made for full parties, regardless of who is controlling them. So yes, I agree that if you don't like the kind of gameplay in Baldur's Gate or the other games I mentioned above, NWN1 is the better game for you. Since I prefer that kind of gameplay, NWN2 is the one for me.
To your other point, though, a given player is
not always expected to use all features included in a game. Often there are mutually contradictory features included as options to give different players ways of playing differently. The fact that you can set the party members with specific actions for their AI (which you can also do in the Infinity Engine games) and simply let them act as AI agents shows that they were giving options both for that kind of gameplay and for full party control.