I played this a litle bit once and I did not get used to the controls, then I started playing skyrim and all other games were forsaken.

Looks like the original is stuck in a lovely quagmire? =/

I don't quite understand what you mean. The original version of the game was on Xbox and ran perfectly fine. The official reason for remaking EFBB in Dark Athena given by the devs was that Microsoft was unable to make the X360 compatible with it. And apparently the devs felt that it was important that all players who were going to play Dark Athena had a chance to experience the story of EFBB.

I have distinct memories regarding reviews on it, something about it had too many visuals that gave the Xbox issues. Too many effects/filters at once? Limited Ram? Some sections ran at a lower Framerate? I'm not sure.

Glancing at Wikipedia i don't see references to it so i can't back up my original comment... Although it was probably the Ram... Which probably brings Morrowind into the fro; Specifically when the savefile size got larger than 3Mb (i think) and the game wouldn't run anymore. But that's a little off topic.

I agree with the OP and would love to have the option to play the original campaign because I have heard they screwed up the balance of the gameplay in the remake.

It is, but:
a) there are several changes to the original campaign
b) lip syncyng is weird
c) there's no developer commentary mode

It kind of sucks that the wishlist entry with the most votes is marked "completed." Some of the mechanics were less than wonderful when I tried to play, exactly the kind of thing save scumming is helpful for fighting through, but alas, the remake removed quicksaves. I could also swear I heard somewhere that the original wasn't quite as dark, which was another problem I had with the remake.

Not that my opinion means a great deal to the anonymous hordes of lolcats, GOGbears, and server gnomes that comprise the internet, but the original showing up would be the only thing that would persuade me to give the game another shot.

Which is sorta dumb...

I know i could navigate my house with the candle light across the entire house, so why the first 2-3 levels are in total darkness and you can't see diddly squat was one of the few times i got annoyed. Course it wasn't long before my eyeballs were sufficiently polished by a doctor in the game (referencing Total Dark i think)