Ah, the Monkey Island games. All round excellence
I personally enjoyed the original one the most, though I think the reason I prefer it over MI2 might be that I simply can't agree with Guybrush having a beard - It just aint right! Other than that, it might actually be a slightly better game, but dammit, a beard?! On Guybrush?!? Thankfully he'd lost it by the 3rd installment, leaving my to enjoy it without such a distraction.
I didn't find the controls in Escape bothersome, but then I'd played Grim Fandango first and it features much the same control scheme, so I had some practise. But really, as long as there's pirates, zombies and lots of Guybrush-created mayhem, who cares? Monkey Kombat was a bit of a letdown though, I'll agree on that. Plus, everyone knows that all Monkeys ever say is Ook. Err no, wait, that's Apes, never mind
By the way, if you haven't played Grim Fandango, you really should. It is, in my opinion, the best game of the kind, even compared to the Monkey Island series. More serious, but still has a lot of humor - It's just more subtle. I'd actually rate Fandango as highly within the Adventure genre as I rate FS2 in the Spacesim genre, and that says a lot. Much the same fates too, being released, being the best, and being (nearly) the last due to poor sales. And thus, forever remaining the best.