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But with hindsight 100% orpheus. He turns out to be a reasonable and honorable person.
I kill Astarion because I wake up to him feeding on me.
We are not the same.
So when the time came to choose between the Emperor and Orpheus and for the first time everyone was like I really dunno lol, my wife asked "What would Laebae want?" And since Laebae was a Vlaakith fangirl, we let the Emperor eat Orpheus.
Needless to say, we were all pretty surprised when the Emperor ended up saving the city AND he didn't even take the crown. On my 2nd run (solo) I sided with Orpheus, so seen that side too.
So, OP, go with the one you like more. You'll save the city either way.
The Emperor omits a lot of information when you talk to him, and he catfishes you at the start, but he never tells a single falsehood. You can trust every word he says in its most literal and straightforward interpretation. Even the truth about his past with Stelmane only has details omitted rather than it being a lie. Even "there is no dragon" is not a lie - it's a corpse of a dragon long dead.
I believe he is truly and fully Balduran (potentially sans the soul), but that he has changed - not because of his nature as a mindflayer but because of Balduran's pre-existing desire for power. I believe that once he came to realize the powers this new form offered him, he gave into temptation and was in awe of this potential.
Similarly, since he has never once lied, I fully believe his explanation for what happened with Ansur and why he killed him. I think he truly did want to be returned to his original race...at first. The evidence that he was willing to die if a cure could not be found is there to be read in-game. However, I think that he eventually decided that having all this power was worth the change, and decided that living as a mindflayer was ideal.
I think it's worth noting that he never dominated you. Despite his past in having done so with a particularly high-profile character, he seems to have decided not to do that to you. And he could have. Easily, at any time, he could have dominated you. It's hard to say why he chose not to.
In the end, after the brain is defeated, he does destroy it as he claimed he intended to. He has no designs for gaining control over it, like some players claim. He never betrays everyone for some secret scheme. I think that really says something about his character, even as a mindflayer.
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On the other hand, we have Orpheus. Orpheus is an unknown quantity (to the character and to the Emperor). But, in Faerûn canon, Orpheus is not a good dude. According to the established lore regarding the Githyanki, Gith espoused Githyanki racial superiority over all other races and held imperialistic ideals. Gith's end goal was to conquer all the realms so that the Gith can reign supreme - little different than the goal of the Mindflayer's Grand Design, in fact. This same lore paints Orpheus as a most loyal supporter of his mother, and a patron of these same ideals.
Let me say it explicitly. Even if Orpheus is freed and successfully overthrows Vlaakith, he will (almost) certainly lead the Githyanki to conquer the realms, just as his mother wanted. Orpheus, honorable as he may be, is an evil person with evil goals.
However, it's worth noting that we do not know how strongly he holds to his mother's ancient ideals, and it's certainly possible that he might be reasoned with. Especially with all Lae'zel has learned about you "lesser races", she may actually be able to convince him of the worth of other races and the potential for peaceful cooperation. We don't know. We likely never will. I doubt the story of the Githyanki will ever be truly concluded in any DnD media.
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I'd say that the endings most likely to lead to good results are:
It's all speculation in the end.
While I agree with you as a whole, the Emperor is NOT Balduran. Ceromorphosis is not someone transforming into an Illithid, but the tadpole literlaly taking over the host body, consuming its brain and tissues to allow for its final evolution. Most of Illithids don't retain memories from their hosts and if they do, it's because they literally ate them. Particularly strong willed individuals - as Balduran would likely have been - leave a stronger mark on the Illithid's mind, but it still is another person entirely.
It doesn't really change how the character works and you're still on point, in my opinion, with everything around the Emperor. As a matter of fact, him being an independant Illithid makes him super reliable as an ally against an Elder Brain... Since Illithid have no individuality until they leave the range of the Brain, they want to keep their newfound freedom.
However, Illithids, even outside of an Elder Brain control, still believe in the Grand Design... they just want to become the one that will make it happen. And if my memory doesn't fail me, the Emperor still plan to turn you into thralls in the long run.
Wich after finding out he was a squid, was pretty gay.
Said i'd kill him after that.
Thus sans the soul. The only difference between Balduran and a mindflayer who has the whole personality, all of the memories, all of the inclinations of, and actively believes it is Balduran is the lack of the original soul, if even that is true.
It's just the classic philosophical quandary of "if there exists a perfect clone of someone, is it really the same person"? For all intents and purposes, within the context of the game - yes, they are. As you eluded to, whether the Emperor specifically is the original or not really doesn't change anything for the story.
I'm not particularly well versed in DnD/Faerûn lore, as I only know what I've experienced through the BG series and a handful of other DnD games throughout the decades, and what I've looked up in regards to them, but... Is this recent canon? Because they've been making a fair bit of changes to Mindflayers, what with considering older canon also establishes that they do in fact have souls.
Besides, if he wanted to bring about the grand design, he could have just taken control of the uniquely powered-up brain. It was his choice not to. As with a ton of established DnD lore, it's perfectly plausible that the writers are running with the previous lore on this being "unreliable narrator"-esque, making him an exception. Kind of like evil being strictly predetermined by blood/race (a rule which the BG1, 2, and 3 games are all about subverting).
I tend to pay super careful attention to dialogue and don't remember seeing anything regarding that at all. Unless that's a line specific to treating the Emperor with skepticism or contempt, I don't believe that is the case. I decided for my first run to support the Emperor as a friend from beginning to end while refusing the evolution he offers at every turn, and he was just like, "Even though you for some reason refused to evolve, you've proven a true friend and reliable ally." at the end of the game before going off wherever he goes.
I wonder if it's less they believe in the Grand Design and more that they are prone to believing in and striving for some form of unity. The peaceful coexistence that the Society of Brilliance - the group Omeluum belongs to - wants to achieve with other races is a form of unity. Omeluum just contributes to this by trying to find a solution to his race's dietary needs.