Sacred Haven of Debauchery

and from there, BioWare started the trend of turning every game into a dating sim

.
Many fans of BioWare games actually enjoy this. And it's entirely optional; you don't have to start romantic relationships. Out of all the in-game romances, I only liked Vic, Lisa, and Tali. Besides, in their games, either the stories are good, or the atmosphere is great. So, such relationships don't negatively affect the quality of the games.

It's surprising how the first NWN avoided such a fate.

Chris Avellone, who participated in the development of NWN 1, was strongly against romantic relationships, which is why there are only three short romances in the game.

But I don't like that in the second Baldur's Gate, they turned such magnificent portraits into who knows what.

To each their own; Minsk and Edwin have pretty good portraits, for example. And almost no one plays with the "basic" ones; as far as I can remember, I've always loaded custom ones into the game.