Yes I read about that recently. Sounds promising. Maybe the first game really worth a save game import.
I think it's good that TW1 did not have such a big effect on TW2 while TW2 will have a bigger effect on TW3. It's better to "get into" the series that way.
TW2 has a big graphic upgrade in comparison with TW1 and is different in gameplay, it's good for newcomers to get in the world by using TW2 as first game and then decide what to do, also only PC players played TW1 so a save game import was not that much of a priority, especially since TW1 was heavily focused on a Witcher-oriented story with even giving you the "neutral" "Witcher-like" choice when you had to decide who support, and since there were not that many TW1 decisions which actually could have a DIRECT impact on TW2 since TW2 has a lot of new characters and does not continue many storylines from TW1.
Now TW3 draws all stories of TW2 and TW1 together, concludes loose ends, deals with consequences of the actions, etc. And in this case I think the bigger impact is justified. So I think it is awesome how they did it.
The main problem in many series for me is that you have to play the first game of the franchise to "get into" the whole world and to be able to import your decisions. Those "first games" are always old and have clunky mechanics, make mistakes the later games do not and have bad graphics. Once you are IN the world and LIKE it those things all become suddenly acceptable. But if you are still unsure such elements can determine if you are loosing yourself in the world or if you quit the game, which is not good.
SO I think games like The Witcher 2 or Mass Effect 2 did that pretty well in terms of how impactfull your decisions in the first part were, while they also did a god job in terms of raising the stakes and impact of the choices for the next game (major political decisions in TW2, Suicide Mission in ME2). (That being said however, I hope that CDPR create a better game than Bioware with the 3rd part of the franchise (I actually have faith that they will), for obvious reasons)
That's my take on it.
The second part should not be too restrictive for newcomers in the beginning, while the third part - IMO - has more freedom in that regard.