If the Organization took a Lesson from Xaldin....

[Veritas7340]

By this I mean, if Organization XIII directly and indirectly interfered in the affairs of worlds like Xaldin did throughout the 1st half of the game, would you like KHII's story more?

For instance, Organization XIII members could manipulate Disney Villains of the worlds into attacking Sora with Heartless. In this respect, they would be like KHI Maleficent. In KHI, she went to different worlds advising, like Jafar and Hades, on how to deal with Sora.

 

[FudgemintGuardian]

Since it would mean the Disney worlds would've had purpose instead of just gathering dust and having absolutely no purpose, yes, I would have liked it more.

 

[gamerobber7]

That probably would have added a lot more story and character development. I enjoyed the antics of Xigbar and Luxord on the second visit to Land of Dragons and Port Royal, respectively, and it might have been better if they had had more of the members interact with the Disney characters.

 

[Gram]

Creative wise it's probably just KH2's not so great writing.

On a plot level it's likely to do with Xemnas' lies. He told the nobodies they could not grow hearts, that they could not feel, that they weren't even real to begin with.
This was all done to keep them from becoming to self aware and as we learned in DDD one of the key factors which allows a heart to flourish is interaction with people and the natural world as a whole.

Limiting it was one of many fabrications in place to keep nobodies fairly close to how they were when born, empty.

Given Xaldins attitude towards having a heart it was unlikely for him to stray to far from Xemnas goals even with a bit of interaction.

 

[Elysium]

Yes, I would definitely like KH2 more. The Disney worlds wouldn't seem so irrelevant and the Organization members would get more screentime/hopefully more time to show their personalities--a plus all around.

I actually once thought about what they could've done to make KH2 better once before. I would've liked if the Organization had targeted the Disney villains as people with strong hearts and attempted to have them destroyed by the Heartless so they could attain their Nobodies, which would probably be easy considering how closely they align themselves to the darkness. Jafar, Maleficent, Ursula, and Hades should all definitely have strong hearts (although I wonder if it's even possible for Hades to lose his heart).

 

[Heartless Sora]

When I first played Kingdom Hearts 2, I was immediately confused when I first went to worlds as we were dealing with Heartless problems instead of Organization XIII and I was thinking "Why introduce a new threat if they aren't gonna show up and do something?" When I got to Beast's Castle, I was intrigued by Xaldin and what he was doing. I did like the idea of having two visits in some worlds in which one time your there, you're dealing with heartless and the second time you're there, you're dealing with nobodies. If they could have possibly done it for all or a majority of the worlds except mix it up in which it's the first time in which you run into Organization XIII antics for some worlds and in other worlds you run into Organization XIII antics on the second visit. I think it would allow for the game to be more interesting and it wouldn't really feel like they introduced Organization XIII for no reason for the majority of the first half of the game.

 

[kuraudoVII]

It definitely would have helped make the game more bearable to play if the main villains that we were going up against this time around (and, indeed, have been going up against since Chain of Memories) had more of a presence, especially if they were actively trying to antagonize Sora and company or perhaps even some of the the Disney villains. At the very least, they wouldn't have felt like they were tacked on at the beginning only to mostly disappear at about the halfway point and then awkwardly become prominent near the end. It makes it feel like the pacing of the game was all wrong and inconsistent. People can say that the pacing and presence of the main villains in Chain of Memories was bad - especially for Reverse/Rebirth - but at least the villains appeared more consistently between floors in that game as opposed to the remaining members of Organization XIII in II.

However:

On a plot level it's likely to do with Xemnas' lies. He told the nobodies they could not grow hearts, that they could not feel, that they weren't even real to begin with.
This was all done to keep them from becoming to self aware and as we learned in DDD one of the key factors which allows a heart to flourish is interaction with people and the natural world as a whole.

Limiting it was one of many fabrications in place to keep nobodies fairly close to how they were when born, empty.

Given Xaldins attitude towards having a heart it was unlikely for him to stray to far from Xemnas goals even with a bit of interaction.

This turns out to be a very valid point when taking into account the reveal at the end of Sora's story for Dream Drop Distance. Interaction happens to be one of the biggest things needed for a heart to grow, let alone manifest in the first place. If the Organization members "meddled in the affairs of other worlds" as King Triton said to Sora, then it would have made it easier for them to manifest their own hearts, something that Xemnas and Xehanort went to great lengths to avoid.

Taking all of that into consideration, I still don't necessarily excuse the fact that Organization XIII had little presence in Kingdom Hearts II despite having more of a role in Chain of Memories. Granted, these ideas were most likely already in Nomura's head when plotting out the games so it may be possible that he didn't feature them prominently in II so that when the revelation that they can grow hearts is shown in Dream Drop Distance, they can use their lack of presence in II as a reason why they didn't necessarily suspect that Xemnas was lying about them not having hearts. However, I still think that this is somewhat lazy, especially considering that Xaldin was able to operate just fine interfering with the Beast's World.

 

[Gram]

Taking all of that into consideration, I still don't necessarily excuse the fact that Organization XIII had little presence in Kingdom Hearts II

This^ this right here. That will always be one of the big flaws of KH2. The main villains were hardly present and when they were it didn't have much to do with what was actually going on.
Luxord attacking Port Royal? Why? They was already gaining hearts from the heartless Sora destroyed there was no reason for Luxord to go there.
Xaldin trying to make Beast a heartless? Sure that has some sense to a degree but why focus only on Beast when the Org's goal was hearts in mass?
Demyx in Olympus? Was this one ever even given a reason?

They just didn't feel like the villains they were supposed to be and made up to be in CoM. Even at the end in their own world we don't see much of them till we actually fight them.
At most you get a few scenes of Saix talking to Xemnas, to Maleficent and then dying.