Nah, I don't mind the subquests. It's generally interesting, and you're probably expected to skip out on a few. The Baldur's Gate series is actually one of my favourite games of all time, and I'm not sure how it would feel playing it after Shadows of Amn, otherwise I would certainly incite you to play it. Sarevok also has one of the most awesome schemes I have ever witnessed. It's really just this one gripe I have with the game. I'll try to explain it to you since you haven't played. The original Baldur's Gate had the entire Sword Coast region from Baldur's Gate to the borders of Amn mapped with areas, representing towns, dungeons, areas of interest and of course the wilderness. I like this in concept, since obviously most of the world is inhabited. The problem is that nearly all of these areas had self contained quests, which meant you actually had to go out and look for them, with usually no in game reasons to do so.

This is not always the case, mind you. Sometimes travelling through town you'd hear about various threats or quests that need you to go out into the wilderness to complete them. For those who have played, I'm thinking of, for example, Bassilus the mad Cleric of Cyric, Commander Brage of Nashkell, and so forth. There are also rumours of hidden treasures in some areas, like under the Lighthouse south of Candlekeep, which while not actual quests, if you listen to the rumours in town you can learn about. These are fine, you don't know exactly where you need to go, but you're given a general idea and search around in the wilderness until you find them to complete your quest.

My problem is the other quests, the ones you have no reason to be out there looking but that you can stumble across if you're searching that area of wilderness. Because you know of these quests, you'll want to explore every area of the game fully. And here's where the grinding comes in. All areas (including cities) are completely unexplored and covered in that black 'fog of war' like shroud. Every area is the same size, a large rectangular section of the map that is mostly empty, except for the occasional roving monsters. Most areas might contain 4 areas of interest at best, but to find them you start off from whatever edge of the map you came in from, then start skirting the edge clockwise until you've circled the entire map back to your starting position. Then you start again, in a smaller rectangle skirting the area you've already explored. Until you've explored the entire area. You do this for every area of the game. There are fifty overland areas, more if you include the Tales of the Sword Coats expansion, including cities (which are also unexplored and remember that you can enter every single house in the game, and that some of them will include quests as well) but not dungeons.

That's why I said Baldur's Gate involved grinding.