Even the originals (Oblivion and Morrowind) had their faults.
Morrowind: Get your haggle skill up and you can go around to every merchant, buy all they had and sell it back to them for more than what you bought. Rinse, repeat.
Oblivion: Some skills, like sneak, could be increased with a few well places books on the keyboard. End up sneaking into a wall near a critter. A few bathroom breaks later and I could sneak up on a wild animal in an open field in full daylight.
I have not played Skyrim yet. I think it looks really nice, but I can see how many games have been dumbed down. That is disappointing. I would LIKE a game that was a bit more like Fallout (requiring some actual physical skill as well as "level"), and I also like the "get better at the tings you have been doing, not the things you have never done (like being able to do kung-fu because you picked someone's pocket...).
I can see the grind problem, and that is something I fear in most of these games. Missions with little point. I also do not like the ones that have no time limit, but to be fair, sometimes that is not fair to do to someone with a large mission list.
Dead Again was one game that was VERY frustrating. You would save at a point, get a few missions, then notice one, the main plotline, was about to expire. Your save point was very close to this, so you could not go back a bit. So you had to go out, unprepared, to battle a guy with VERY good aim... I gave up after 3-4 tries and have not played it since (how long ago was that?).
At the same time, it was still a fun, and different, game.
As for the World Scale, I agree there too. They are making it too easy. Maybe what they should do is have SOME sort of penalty (like gold for a trip?), time limits on certain objectives that would force you to take a wagon or boat instead of walk, and random encounters even on quick-travel.
They should also have areas you can NOT quick-travel through (surprise/ambush/danger zones).
But so long as they are starting to make the game mechanic more... "lifelike" (arrows that do not follow a strait line) I will still give it a try.... when the price drops to something a bit less XBoxy