I think about the thousands of "books" and scrolls and story to experience, hours of voiced dialogue and just reams of unvoiced dialogue...

And I compare it to the "Hello Traveler! (Push X to Continue)" diaglouge that 98% of NPC's in SNES games provide, and I'm just shocked that people think those old games had depth.

They spent years writing the surrounding material for Oblivion.

Just because you steam rolled the main story and chose not to explore, to read and experience that world doesn't mean there wasn't depth.

The difference is, in those old SNES games -- there is no depth to experience outside of the linear story. It's the story...and that's it.