Laric, I am glad you are enjoying the journals. I have been the GM for this AP, and really, Useplanb and Kallidos have gone above and beyond to convey the events of this adventure, and I wanted to publicly applaud them.
As with any game, the group really makes the difference. I am lucky to have a group of friends who really worked with me as I ran this. Being fairly new to GM'ing I had alot of reservation going into this AP, and now that we are on book 5, I have learned quite a bit. If I had to do it all over again, here is what I would alter:
-The introductory themes of the AP do not match the themes of the rest of the adventure. The characters are directed (appropriately so) to make shifty, seedy, urban-style characters. This works out well throughout book 1, but then shifts dramatically as the PC's are asked to essentially go save the world. As the players mentioned above many of them responded with a "What?! Who? Me?" reaction. Perhaps it is my latent romanticism, but when I read the adventure I envision this dramatic shift as the characters become swept up into these world-shattering events and transformed from everyman to heroes. As it turned out, the only real motivation became bloodlust, greed, and players desire to not derail my first adventure.
-At every stage of the adventure, there is a fairly significant NPC that the PC's have to deal with to progress the plot that treats them like garbage! I had to completely rewrite several NPC's to be more supportive of the group. Even still, there where several times where the party was on the verge of quiting simply because the people they were trying to save were jerks, and without a "noble soul" selfless type-character to rally the it took the players go along with it.
-As mentioned before, there are several skill challenges in this AP. They are conceptionally interesting but don't translate well to a group of players (perhaps a failing on my part). My players complained about them, but to be honest I reduced those parts of the adventure by at least 50%. The Drow Slave Point(SP) part of the adventure in particuliar required them to achieve 75 SP, I stopped at 30! If I could go back, I would used the SP thing intially as an intro to "life as a Drow" then shifted to specific tasks for individual NPC's. The book does this, but too little, too late.
In closing, I would say that the guts of this AP are great! The plot and story are excellent when you read it as a GM. Unfortunately, there are several points where you almost literally have to ram the plot down the PC's throats, and this might leave a bit of a bitter taste in their mouths. I hope that answered your questions.