Arguably most players go to the Goldbox games for the combat rather than the story. That said, the novelty in providing stories, clues, maps and narrative points via journal entries as something you read outside of the game I think is still useful and effective. Wasteland also used a similar idea. Players perhaps wouldn't be as receptive today (it might be immersion breaking for some) but I certainly enjoyed the anticipation of ticking off each entry at the time.
The Goldbox games also feature some of the greatest and most memorable combat encounters to grace AD&D games. Not too many games post NWN come close for me. For example, the Beholder Corps fight in Curse of the Azure Bonds, the Black Dragons in Hap, the orcs in Sokol Keep at low level is another memorable one from Pool of Radiance. There are plenty such fights in these games which recreated in a modern ToEE like engine could be experienced by newer players.
Baldur's Gate continued this tradition of having memorable combat design and I'd argue that it is integral to the core D&D experience that this continues. I'm not liking what I've read from Swen so far regarding dice rolls and missing as being "not fun" - this was also part of the experience of playing Goldbox games and to a lesser extent, the Baldur's Gate series. Precisely how they work around that facet of combat is going to be interesting.
Admittedly I have zero experience with 5E thus can't fully judge the degree to which the ruleset will be implemented and adjusted in the name of "fun", but reading about these updates and the justifications for them is going to be fascinating and no doubt controversial given the passion that these games inspire in some players.