A BGIII as a prequel could be good as long as it contained the essential elements of the first two (namely a good storyline, indepth NPC's, etc) and I do not think it should concentrate on the Bhaal saga at all. However, I did like the idea of being in the early days of Baldur's Gate.
Yea, that's one of the positive things I remember from the article (it said that the prequel would propably be set in the early days of Baldur's Gate) and I concur that that might make it a little more interesting.
I think the people here on Forgotten Wars are a lot more positive about BGIII than we were at DLTC