I am not really sure how I feel about this.
BITD, I had about given up on D&D (moving on to other RPGs) , by the time DL1 rolled around. I remember buying a copy when it showed up, reading it, and thinking it was a novel TSR wanted me to run as a D&D adventure. I filed it away and eventually it got sold in a big lot with 90% of my other gaming materials.
In the mid 1990s as I got back heavily into gaming, I picked up the the original novels, and enjoyed them. Much moreso than the FR novels I purchased (Avatar Trilogy, Prince of Lies, and some godawful thing I could not get past 2 chapters from E. Cunningham). Eventually I decided to grab some DL gaming materials. I liked SAGA. That Bestiary is STILL my fave monster manual ever. Game was good, and different. I did not have much in the way of pre-conceived notions or expectations of what DL was "supposed" to be about, and so I took SAGA at face value. I then bought the TotL boxed AD&D set. Also good, but seemed a bit all over the place as a product...just poorly organized and seemed incomplete. I played a session or three of SAGA and enjoyed it, but the group I was part of was more into Champions and Rolemaster. Finally a few years later I purchased the WOTC DL 3.x book based on the very good job they did with the FRCS. That DLCS was the most bland uninspiring setting book I have ever purchased, along with Kingdoms of Kalamar. It totally ruined any enthusiasm I had previously. Like the LGG, it seemed mostly centered on History/Ages (and Novel characters), and there was precious little "plot hooks/adventure seeds and other useful things to use at my game table tonight" material.
Much like FR, DL seems to have so much baggage, that as a newcomer it makes the setting unappealing once you are exposed to it. Thus why I stuck with OGB FR and ignored nearly everything afterwards. with DL, I feel like I would have to buy a bunch of old stuff and then sift through it all to hopefully find the version I like. Maybe I should just try to score a copy of that old Bestiary and SAGA again(?)