Would you rather have a game in the vein of BG/BG2 that took 40 hours to complete that included romances, or one that gives you an extra 10 hours of gameplay because the writers/desginers didn't spend so much of their time & resources writing/scripting romances?

I really doubt that the translation is quite so neat. It takes more than just us not writing romances to add hours to gameplay.

Regardless, there are going to be romances. Some people may not dig them, but a whole lot do... and by "a whole lot" I mean much more than just a dismissive "segment of the player base". For those who don't like the romances, you'll be happy to note that we intend for them to be primarily player-driven this time around. Whereas before the romance track began just by having the character in your party and you would have to actively discourage it, this time we intend that romances will have to be pursued in order to even begin.