Indeed, they aren't as useful in a brawl as a fighter with similar experience; still, having someone with healing powers and the ability to detect/repel evil is useful, though it depends how you approach the game. If you have an offensive/aggressive party, paladins are just dead weight; if you are concerned with having a more well-rounded party with other aims in mind, they could prove to be useful (though I'd take a ranger first).
Choosing the Paladin class is more significant in true AD&D, though I give the BG people credit for translating as much of the rules as possible to computer--no one's perfect, and some things I feel are just impossible to translate to computer (and if they WERE, then why not play real AD&D anyway?)
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