Maybe I am just outdated but I don't consider this game as bad as many people seem to point. I played the Ultima games when they came out, Fallout games, all of them and I am still playing FO3 and NV merged together by a great NV mod project I am part of the team (a bit of advertisement without advertise anything :P ), Baldur's Gate games (at the moment playing multi-player with my wife), Icewind Dale games, Planescape, Arcanum, Neverwinter Nights games, Diablo games (except for the 3rd one), Lionheart, Sacred games, the Witcher games, the elder scrolls saga, etc, if it is an RPG in any way I probably played it and beat it. After playing all of those games I still don't see how people can really hate this game. True there are flaws that can't be disregarded but I still have a fun time playing it and so does my wife, I am on the second act and I play with the thief, I don't think combat is that slow but maybe that is because since I am a thief I have an extra soldier in front of me hacking enemies together with the dog and the knight, and will soon get a second soldier (since I am about to finish the quest to upgrade my title). About potion usage, yes it gets annoying, but it is not as bad as in lets say the first Diablo games and those were (and still are) considered great games (while it lack any good story and its really just pure Hack and Slash) at least Inquisitor does have a story, came from a small developer and most important is really fun and addictive to play for some reason, also the quests, yes they do require a lot of talking to find out where to go next or who to talk to, and it is annoying but also realistic, if in real life you need to investigate a murder then you do have to talk to a lot of people, and many times have no idea where those persons are, I do agree that the journal should get more notes in it from lots of situations or information that are important but are not written down in it.
About developing strategies to defeat battles, I am really surprised but since I am a thief and use a bow I don't limit myself to just jump into a battle if that was the case I would still be trying to defeat the Orc king by now, it's not as obvious and there is not as many options than lets say Baldur's gate games where we had so many different ways to beat a fight (which is awesome :D ) but there are still several options in Inquisitor (using buffs, seals, skills and different spells, lure enemies or charge in, use ranged or melee, make my companions wait in a strategic spot, using different equipment that buffs or gives different bonus, using a magic box, in the thief case change the type of arrows, etc).
On a side note I do understand quite well when we buy a game (or a book, movie, etc) expecting it to be one thing and then when we use it we realize that is not like we imagined it, it really put us down and make us angry and frustrated, it happens all the time with me, one of the many reasons I joined GOG was because I was so tired of spending so much money on games I would then play and get totally disappointed in them (Command and Conquer 4 I am looking at you :P but there are really a lot of games I got really disappointed after buying) at least here I can buy older games I do love and try others I never played and if I don't really like them then it's all ok, didn't waste $60 on them :P .
Sorry for the ramblings of a bored getting old guy.