My biggest problem with the Elder Scrolls post-Daggerfall has been the extremely condensed scale of things. Arena and Daggerfall were enormous. It is true that much of that enormity was facilitated by random generation, cookie-cutter NPCs, encounters, dungeons, and quests, but still, the scale was awe inspiring.
Morrowind greatly reduced the cookie-cutter aspects and had an amazing story, but was so scaled down in world size that it almost felt like I was adventuring in the local park, not across a large part of a nation. They also removed wall climbing, which was highly disappointing, and even the largest dungeons weren't all that impressive. It also marked the beginnings of consolification of the series. Still, it's probably my favorite Elder Scrolls game.
I didn't really like Oblivion. Without an inordinate amount of mods, the game play and advancement were more tedious than rewarding; the issues with a tiny world remained; more feature of the game, like flight, were cut; and the story was possibly the most cliche and least inspired of the entire line up.
Skyrim certainly looks impressive, and I'm excited to finally see dragons in an Elder Scrolls game, but unless there are some incredible, thus far unrevealed, plot twists and depth, I expect the main storyline to be the worst of all. Even if this was the case, it wouldn't be so bad, if the world was large and detailed enough to make a worthwhile game outside of the main plot. I'm really hoping the game is more than just a few dozen square miles and that they don't try to pass off a walled hamlet of a few hundred people as a "city".
Guess I'll just have to wait and see.
