That's all fair, but at the same time... one isn't required to go for Caed Nua first. Many players DO (I know I was tempted to beeline for the Stronghold), but that doesn't make it a requirement, like gaining X amount of power to leave the Hinterlands. I think you are laying a lot at the feet of what you perceive as a forced grind section of the game that isn't truly the case.
I had this discussion with someone in the DA:I forums a few weeks back, except it was in regards to DA:O's side quests instead of PoE's.
I really appreciate options in quests. Even moreso than true narrative storycraft. Bland dialogue doesn't hop out to me nearly as much as linear quest design.
So the options you gave of good side quests, while they may have been written well, still fall flat with me. For the Blades quest, you aren't given any options - you either craft the item to challenge the leader or you don't. Sure, you can kill him without challenging him (which does nothing except leave all of the Blades hostile to you), but that's more of a quest failure than a choice, in my eyes.
Same thing for the Hinterlands Cult - nearly everything is handled very linearly minus the rewards for certain quests, like Analis giving different Influence or recruit bonuses. While that may have more meta-story applications, it isn't that much different than deciding between 100 gold or a +1 Sword of Smiting.
The judgments I feel are the few side quests that offer true choices. And those are done fairly well, if sometmes a little flat. But that is a vast sea of linearity to find the one oasis of non-crit path choice. YMMV, as always, but I was nearly giddy with the choices in the first dungeon of PoE, where I could solve the puzzle, I could attack the imp, I could avoid both obstacles altogether... options that have next to zero writing and which ultimately don't affect much of anything... but still, choices. Choices which let me define my game experience and define what my character does. Those things are worth more, to me, than a mountain of linear, excellently written quests.
I guess I haven't encountered the feeling of gating yet... but I'm a completionist at heart, so I naturally "grind" side quest content first anyway.
I'd be interested in your review, Rob. Let us know when you post it.
One takeaway I have is that, as you know from tabeltop experiences, sometimes being underleveled doesn't mean you need to grind. It just means you may need to engage in tactics you might have never thought of normally. This is usually much more prevalent in tabletop, because if that level 20 lich in the next room your 5th level party just spotted is in your game, you can't reload a save to an earlier point to grind out some levels.
Maybe there are other solutions outside of direct combat. Or maybe it is forcing the player to do things like scout, set traps, switch weapon sets, plan out encounters... get good at the actual gameplay mechanics instead of steamrolling through with the most direct approach based off of character level strength alone. One thing I think PoE is guilty of is the same thing nearly every other RPG (or video game period, honestly) is guilty of - a poor approach to teaching the player to use the more nuanced game mechanics. The game tells you how to click the sneak button and what it does, but it doesn't encourage the player to do things like scout out an area, lay down some traps, lay down a slick spell, switch to a long range weapon, attack an enemy, snipe it as it takes damage from the trap and slipping, switch back to melee weapons as the enemy gets up and appraoches, then begin the encounter as normal, but with a big chunk of damage and penalties inflicted on the target.
Not saying you don't do or know how to do these things, but many gamers just want to rush in and attack every enemy using the same rotation of skills and cooldowns over and over again and get frustrated when it doesn't work every time. Maybe it is forcing grinding, yes. But maybe it is encouraging people to get better at aspects of the game they aren't fully utilizing.
But that's more of a tirade than a true response to your statement.
Interesting honorable mentions. What Crono Trigger did as a time traveling video game has yet to be matched, in my experience/opinion. For Planescape, I'll say that is a solid choice, although one with mechanic and leveling issues, as you freely admit.
I can't agree on Mass Effect. What it does well is truly impressive, but narratively speaking it was such a dumpster fire from ME2 on (not even just the ending of ME3, but pretty much the entire story outside of stopping Sovereign and Saren) and the progressive shift towards more of a FPS over an RPG made it seem like it almost fell outside the scope of the genre by the end. But that's a total derailment of the topic at hand.
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