My thoughts exactly. Whatever issues were in Morrowind, Oblivion, New Vegas, Skyrim etc there was still a uniquely engaging game there.

I’ve been poking around and their lead concept artist died before he got to work on Fo4, and the two main writer producer guys Emil & Pete(?) have basically admitted on game dev talks that they’re no longer trying to tell a coherent story or create a world anymore, just keep a player playing. Maybe this is why?