If that is your view, that is fair. I would just say once again though, it is a matter of taste and perspective. I read VRGTR when it came out, it wasn't what I was looking for in Ravenloft or in a gothic horror setting, but if the approach is more gameable to you, then I can't say otherwise. I can say, the original line was far more gameable for me. As a setting, I started on the black box, and while it is clearly intended more as a weekend in hell at that point, I ran it as a long term campaign from the get-go (typically the conceit of these campaigns were the players were brought to Ravenloft from elsewhere, but I occasionally had them play natives). For me, the black box got just the right balance on the details (there was enough that I understood what the setting was about, but there was plenty of space for me to build within that). But by domains of dread, it was treated as a more full setting even in the books.
ON the modules, I get that they are more railroady than many of us play today (I am the furthest thing from a railroad GM). But I find if you engage them on their own terms and run them as intended, they generally work (there are some hiccups the GM has to smooth over but I think we were pretty accustomed to that just from the fact that they were making so many adventures back then so there was always bound to be some amount of material they didn't catch). But I have also found the old modules great for cannabalizing and turning into other types of adventure structures. It just depends on what I am looking for. Again though, taste and preference. Even within the fandom of the 2E era, some people prefer DOD and later, which I get, and some prefer Black Box and the earlier models (which is where I tend to reside). I am sure there are some who are devotees of the red box even.