And I'm not saying all of them were side stories, but there were side stories. They weren't LONG by any means, but they were there. And yah. Mages are squishy. They're ALWAYS SQUISHY. That's kind of the idea. They're generally a rougher class to play than a warrior, which is ideal for those who like to faceroll their fighting.

BG was very true to real RPGs. You don't always go off on an epic quest the whole time. Sometimes you need extra gold so you go do something else. Sometimes you're not ready to kill the dragon.

Of course things like "level grinding" and "fetch/carry/kill" side quests are present. It's an RPG. It's the nature of the beast. What else WILL a mercenary be doing, pray tell? That's what an adventurer is, really. An explorer and a mercenary. It's not like people are going to ask you to fix them gourmet meals for gold. What do you really expect to be asked to do?

As far as the main plot goes, I've played through it relatively quickly and ignored the side quests before. It's very difficult to do the later-ends of the plot line if you don't side quest, yes. But again, that's the nature of the beast. If you want to glide through every stage of a game without needing to spend some extra time, get an fps.