Odd. BG1 was weaker in story than Fallout 1-2 and PS:T but still a lot of fun to play through. It's considered one of the better PC RPGs, so you and your friends are in the minority for this one too.
Well, at the risk of sounding like a person with no attention span 'a la' a Diablo-esque RPG player, which I don't claim to be, part of the reason I didn't like BG was that your characters hardly advance. That's part of what I didn't like about PST either. When I play a game I like that idea of advancing character abilities and items. A compelling story helps, but I want my character to advance regularly, get new abilities, and enrich the ways in which I can interact with the environment and other characters (both in combat and out). BG and PST had that, to be sure, but not enough for my tastes. IIRC, you finish BG at about level 7. That's very lame.