Interesting and amusing read. Of course Ron Gilbert is a well-known authority on Adventure Games, but the original Old Man Murray article is even better (and funnier). In case anyone hasn't read it yet: "Who Killed Adventure Games?" http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html

(As an amusing aside, point-and-click adventure games were considered to be for "clever" gamers in 90s Spain and Latin America; gamers who mocked action games as simplistic. But there was nothing "clever" or "cerebral" about most adventure games; they were mostly arbitrary and nonsensical. And fun, of course!)

Before I read the Old Man Murray article I was already frustrated with (some) adventure games, even though I absolutely loved the Space Quest series (the original, 16 colors and text input!), and of course Interactive Fiction (aka text adventures). IF games in particular had something of a rennaissance some years (or decades?) ago and they evolved into something way more complex and with better UX than what we remember from the old Zork days.