I've noticed in some threads about audio/video problems causing the game not to load the solution has been to make some changes in QT. Is QT installed with the game, or required to play it at all?
I really want to give this game a try, but don't want QuickTime on my system.
My specs:
WinXP SP3
Radeon 9800XT
SB Audigy2

It is not required at all nor is it installed with the game. The game does include its own Quicktime library in order to support playback of the cutscenes within the game. You only need to install Quicktime if you are going to try creating a modified Quicktime Preferences file for the game to use in order to avoid the "Fatal Panic" error that XP users can run into. You can still get around that issue by simply lowering the hardware acceleration on your sound card instead.
BTW - What have you got against Quicktime?

QuickTime is bloatware and should've gone the way of Real years ago.

"Gone the way of Real"? Real is still around and doing quite well. It has morphed to include a pay video service and Rhapsody, just like Quicktime has morphed to include iTunes.
I always find the "bloatware" complaint kind of funny when you consider that it doesn't have to become a bloat on your system, you let that happen when you let it install itself as it wants to. A couple of simple tweaks and it never does anything you don't want it to. I've got it on my system as a simple plugin and player application that does not run anything extra in the background or at startup, is not associated with any particular file type (except the Quicktime-specific ones) and does not add any bloat at all on my system.

to each his own
I'll stick with one player for all formats.