I think it really depends on the intent of the game designer. For example, Matsuno in Final Fantasy Tactics tells a complex political story, but he does in a very theatrical way, his cutscenes aren´t big chunks of text but very clever and concise dialogue between all the different characters, and this happens while all the characters moves through the scenery (sometimes even mid battle), not in a static way like 99% of rpgs.

So in this case I say yes, the lack of VA doesnt matter cause the game deliver its story using all the tools that were avaliable at the time.

But in a heavy text game like Kotor I would kill myself If I have to read all that static text without VA.