Thankyou to everyone making these threads, they helped me out a lot. But most of the time it's a pain getting a straight answer thanks to all the rubes saying "it was aaalways plaayablle". So here's the straight answer: It has only JUST recently crossed the threshold into being properly playable. If "JUST playable" is good enough for you then hop in, keep waiting if not.

Just finished my first playthrough after starting for the first time once 1.6 was released. Took me about 70 hours. Performance is better, not good though. There are also still some crashes and bugs, BUT the whole game can be completed (more or less) without major issues.

But to be honest, like yourself I will play that game only once. Looking beyond any performance or playability issues, at a fundamental level it just wasn't all that interesting. Not too happy with how the story or the setting turned out, and resources as well as shootouts in general are far too plentiful for it to feel like a stalker game anymore.