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I'm still surprised at how many people seemed to find Origins so frustratingly difficult. I can get through it on hard mode pretty easy. Console version mind you. 
Btw those wolves you're on about...that's the encounter where they surround you but also in the vicinity is a whole pavement of bear traps...then after defeating/disarming everything you find signs warning you about the wolves...and the traps. I really quite liked that mischievous humour. Though those wolves are quite a bastard to go against. 
 
As for awakenings improvements...well the trunk is a very nifty addition. Though for the most part I find it all a step down. The difficulty is ridiculously easy and I felt like Awakening went into loot overload. Cramming in almost as much as what Origins gave you in total. 
Also how do you mean Origins didn't have much great loot? there's plenty of rare sets, just that you have to hunt them down across the world. Plus if you set your stats accordingly, you can equip most armour fairly early. Though yeah, the manual of focus really would of helped in Origins especially. 
 
Your party members too....it relied so much on you throwing gifts at their face to get their approval meter up more than deep conversations and such. It was noticeable in Origins too but it was absolute overkill in Awakening.

I really enjoyed the story of Dragon Age Origins.  The characters, the situations, the immense world.  Everything people love about BioWare games, I found it in Dragon Age.  However, playing it was a Goddamn nightmare. 

" I'm still surprised at how many people seemed to find Origins so frustratingly difficult.

I loved how epic some battles would turn out for me in Origins. I played on narmal difficulty, btw. 
I remember once while travelling in Denerim, a LARGE group of bandits had attacked my party, and somehow all except my rogue character died halfway through the battle. Instead of reloading and starting over, I used my rogue cleverly, and with his help, took down about TEN of the remaining bandits. Single handedly. There were some archers in the ten as well. The feeling after I'd beaten them all, low on health, and low on health poultices, having just won the batrtle with only the right moves, was amazing.
Also, when dealing with the spider queen in the deep roads, my character and Morrigan died almost instantly, and I was only left with Oghren and Shale. The fight wen on for a looong time. But the way that the two of them survived through the battle was unbelievable. 
 
I have yet to play Awakening, and I'm super excited for it. Hope it's as awesome or even better than origins!

I felt like the potential for a good story was more than what they delivered. They could have done a lot more with the rival darkspawn factions. And there were a lot of bugs, and the characters were less interesting (for me) but then you have less time to get to know them compared to Origins. I don't get the hate for the battle system other than the fact that you're really never put in a position to change up your tactics. Like, ever. If it works, it works. In Baldur's Gate you regularly ran into a situation where what you did previously wouldn't work at all on a new group of enemies. Not the case here. A big reason behind that is the lack of enemy variety. Still liked it though. Especially after playing ME2 which I found infinitely more tedious in combat.

I don't see how a game with a tactics system that has a bunch of tactical presets could be considered 'too complex'. Set the tactic mode for an offensive character to "scrapper" or something, magician to "defensive" if they're the healer, etc and you never need to look at the menu again. I almost wish it wasn't there because it negates the need for the user to figure out what works themselves. Its an easy ass game.

I thought the story in Origins was kind of lame. From the first second they tell you that in order to stop the blight the arch demon needs to die. I guess I was expecting some kind of twist in the story that never came. This attitude is probably due to the fact that I unknowingly kicked Morrigan out of my party at the end of the game and since she was my only mage with cone of cold it made the last boss impossible to beat on normal. So in the end I put it on easy and breezed through the final battle; and the entire time I was so angry that the decision I made ruined the game for me especially when I had so much fun with it, except for the last part of the game which was one of the most frustrating missions I have ever done.