The game is a direct port of the D&D rules, which are turn based, so that's why it's that way. It is not about exploring a huge world, but about strategic combat. If that's not your thing, that's fine, but Temple's objective was pretty clear, and it succeeds, in my opinion, very well. I personally love the 3.5 rules of D&D, which I play a lot, and so I love the structure of this game. It focuses on what it does well. Plot would be nice, but isn't necessary, because 90% of the game is spent in turn-based combat. That's what it's about. The quests are silly and could have been done better, since they were done at all, but again they represent such a small fraction of the game as to be non-factors. THe trouble is the bulk of them are done early on, so the game often looks rather poor at first, and it misrepresents itself as more of a story-based ROLE-playing game. It's not. It's a strategy game more than that, and it's a good one, IMO.
The level cap is removed by just about any patch combination anybody uses, so it's not an issue, and several mods are available that make the game hard enough that you will be needing those levels.
In the end, if you don't like turn-based strategy or the mechanics of D&D, you probably won't like this game. If you like that, but demand more story, you won't like this game (though again some mods improve the game here too). If you accept that it's a vehicle for building up characters in various combinations and moving them about with careful planning, it does all that you could ask of it.