It's not consolitis, but I think they designed the UI and interface with a future console version in mind, because TW1 had an inventory management that was a lot truer to the true, original RPG.

Quite a few things prevent me from enjoying TW2 fully.

1. Lack of storage.
That is not acceptable in game design that holds a RPG label. I know of no RPG that did not offer some kind of storage. They probably thought it would enhance authenticity and immersion, but then again, nobody will force you to use storage, so if you want to make your experience authentic, simply don't use the storage option. They could have left the option there and made everyone happy, but they didn't.

2. Drinking potions in meditation.
There is ZERO way to know what kind of creatures you might expect in a dungeon or in the adventure ahead. Guessing work is NOT roleplay. Any game mechanic that forces you to die and reload to make the proper choice isn't really a smart mechanic in my opinion.

3. Lack of highlighting, as mentioned before.
As you said, a red glow isn't sufficient in swampy areas to see loot clearly. It doesn't identify NPC nor buildings, neither does the mini-map. A HUGE oversight. Again, if they thought highlighting names would break immersion, nothing forces a player to use that option. They just deprived us of this ability AND storage, which was a bad move in my opinion.

4. Inability to see ingredient types at a quick glance.
You need to select each ingredients in your list one by one to see their type, whereas in the first, a color system was used. A colored dot appeared in the bottom right corner of the ingredient's icon, which made it easy to glance at the inventory and see what was worth harvesting and what you had plenty of already. THIS, I believe, is a symptom of consolitis. I am NOT advocating the game is a port, but it's clear they wanted to keep the menus console-friendly for potential future expansion on the console scene.

5. Inability to see what diagrams we already have
TW1 provided a prompt "You've already read this" to let you know not to purchase the same formula or book again. There is no such system in TW2, which forces you to go in the list one by one. What's worse is that there is no way to sort inventory in any shape or form (by weight, type, price, alphabetically, etc.)

6. The inventory in general
It is clunky. Can't sort anything, it's not streamlined at all. I preferred the Inventory system in the first game a lot more, and it stuck to RPG roots a lot more as well.

7. Control remapping
Not sure what else to say except "what were they thinking?"

None of these are game breaking problems, but they seriously made a dent in the overall game quality and polish. I can live with the combat just fine, I even find it interesting and revivifying. But these seven issues are really annoying me.