What made this game special for me was the humor, plus the story and relationships were really well intertwined! Other AVNs suffer from mainly consisting of "dates" where nothing really remarkable happens. In OIALT you get dates in your story segments and story segments in your dates; not once was I bored. And at the end of it all you feel like you really bonded with the characters that joined you on your journey, and the (best) ending was really sweet. Though I agree with the moral concerns you have, I didn't like that part either.
Eternum might overshadow OIALT, especially once it's finished as well, but to this day I haven't seen a finished AVN better than OIALT. As for graphics and music: Yeah, it's noticable how Caribdis got better and better while he developed the game. The beginning can be indeed quite rough for spoiled AVN consumers ;)