Or at least, regarding my Sorcerer protagonist: four or five fireballs almost from the beginning, and by the time I hit ToB it was more like four or five dragon's breaths, which will kill pretty much everything (and is, ironically, my primary way of killing dragons). Sure, said Sorcerer can still get killed with two blows, but since the AI isn't sophisticated enough to move past my tanks to take out the mages behind them, or even to target my mages with spells, that generally isn't a problem.

But then, I did try to do nearly every quest on the way, and you're right, that's where the big XP points are, in BGII as well. The game really *should* feel a bit easy under those circumstances, otherwise it'd be nearly impossible to finish while ignoring most of the side quests, as some players prefer to do. Which if I understand you right is exactly the problem you had with the original BG, that you aren't really given that choice.