Vancian Magic is geared towards the quality of spells. You won't cease to use Sleep in favour of Blindness and Web because of a cooldown period only, rather because Sleep has specific uses whereas Blindness and Web have others.
That's an implausible distinction, Origins also has an array of quality low level disablers which also have specific uses. If the single-target disabler is more strongly gonna effect a lieutenant, you're not gonna subsequently cast the useless multi-target weak disabler on him, just because you can, wasting mana. You're gonna wait for cooldown to expire, and cast another single-target spell if needed. That's just the same as casting Blindness and then not subsequently casting Sleep, but casting Blindness again. There's no difference other than Origins lets you fire a rocket launcher during cooldowns instead of feebly swinging a wooden stick.
Low level bandits ambushes can be dangerous when you still can't gear a character with enough missile AC bonuses. Mid level mages are pretty much never susceptible to Sleep so you'll instead memorize spells like Blindness, Charm or even Spook in order to disable their spellcasting. The undead are immune to most of those, I should think, and they come in numbers, so you'll favour Grease instead. And if you are a multiclassed Fighter, Armor comes into play just in case need another melee character.
Not sure why you typed all that, but Web is the "I WIN" button in Baldur's Gate for 95% of the encounters. Spook isn't in Baldur's Gate unless you're playing BG2 engine mod. Grease is all but useless.
When level 2 comes around Web, Horror and even Stinking Cloud more or less outclass the other methods of crowd control, but not always. Ettercaps and Spiders are immune to Web. Horror is hell on earth because your targets flee from you. And I think you can chain stun massed spellcasters by stacking Stinking Cloud with Web, cast with different characters.
I beat some SCS2 Ascension boss battles with stacked webs as the major point-turner, a level 2 spell, so I don't think I really need a lesson on what's immune to web, or you mentioning a few AoEs that are better than Web in 5% of encounters, do you?
In fewer words, the situation makes your spellbook depending on party composition, encounter design, beastiary and etc. Its just as you said it yourself: few spells under a balanced cooldown system are as powerful as AD&D Sleep, Blindness, Entangle, Fireball, Web and etc. That is because cooldown systems are tactical but rarely strategic minded. The reason why Origins' spells often come close to the power of AD&D magic is because its spellbook was often very much full of bullshit. There is absolutely no reason in Origins not to run with as many mages as you can. But even then, the likes of Mana Clash and Cone of Cold are rarely as interesting as the distinction between the spells above. To go beyond the already common game of elemental resistances was something I had hoped for a Dragon Age: Origins 2. But alas.
1) Origins has it's own OP spells, Cone of Cold for example.
2) There is nothing strategic about Baldur's Gate or any IE game unless you self-impose a rest restriction. You can self-impose wait restrictions in Origins, too.
3) There is no reason in Baldur's Gate not to run with as many mages as you can, either.
4) Calling the Origins spellbook very much full of bullshit with no arguments hints only at you being very much full of it. And lets ignore all the detritus littering each level of the BG spellbook, shall we?
Nobody here has plausible arguments against cooldowns as featured in Origins, only ignorant comments that reveal them as change-fearing basement-dwellers who don't get enough sunshine and fresh air. The arguments about spamming, button-mashing and micromanagement in Origins are slaughtered by the conditional tactical framework. The IE has nothing but primitive IF THEN END scripts, which don't work with any degree of reliability outside of non-combat clerical heals.
