Yep. That was my group's experience with it too. In our opinion, it reads a lot better than it plays. That being said, my group sucked at tactics. For instance, even though they knew they were heading into a swamp in search of some drowned ruins at one point, they made absolutely no preparations for the difficult terrain, which cost them dearly. I also made the mistake of using the optional black dragonspawn assassins ambush encounter. Only one PC survived.
Glad to hear your conversion is going well so far. On a side note, your comment that I quoted gave me the idea that masterwork items could merely be things that are not only worth selling but might also fetch a decent price, whereas normal stuff won't.