I agree that story is important. Banter with a point is always better than offhand small talk (unless the small talk is fairly ingenious comedy). And usually the best way to implement a story is to throw in small little quests, or make the banters key off of existing quests/combats.
A suggestion I would make is to reserve some banters exclusively for later chapters, right up to the very end, so there's always some to look forward to. One flaw with some implementations of these banter ideas that I've seen is that, if you're the type that must be thorough and check every chest/uncover every square inch of fog of war/etc. (like I am), you often wind up running out of banters fairly early on, and the rest of the game is pretty silent (this is what I experience regularly in BG2 these days, BG1NPC Project was phenomenal precisely because there was so many banters and interjections throughout that you could get into pretty late chapters without running out). Banters that arise in response to late-game events serve the same purpose equally well.
I, for one, would much rather have the banters a bit more spaced out than to get them all in the first couple chapters and then dead silence thereafter. Of course, I still do install the banter accelerators because otherwise you could wind up -never- getting some banters, which is even worse. So a method where the banter accelerator works and you get every banter you should get but they're not all able to be gotten early on is the best of all worlds, IMO.
I'll be honest, none of the implementations of player-initiated dialogue have impressed me much. Dunno why, they just haven't. In most implementations I've seen, you can pretty much explore every avenue when you pick them up, and rarely is anything added. If PC-initiated dialolgues would actually make any change to the plotline or story or could actually even initiate a quest, -that- would be very cool.
And yes, I'm quite looking forward to the romances
Although as mentioned before, an option for a "good"-aligned romance that isn't limited to treehuggers/clerics would be cool, but that's just a personal preference
Oh - and ditto what Jastey said! No need to kill off the romances in this game, there's no direct sequel to require it, god knows there's enough situations out there where killing off the love interest -is- required so let's not when it can be avoided, please
Qwinn