IMHO: I don't think anyone is 'holding their breath' waiting for Bethesda to release ANYTHING ground breaking or earth shattering in the mechanics & game play departments.
Bethesda RPG's are casual gamers 'wonder lands' where the player can wander around seemingly enormous worlds that are chock full of content that require hours upon hours of playtime to see and experience all of.
Thankfully missing the stupid/silly "boss fights" that other titles use to gate/regulate progress the games usually have more to see then what other studios produce.
Granted other studios stress being creative with game play mechanics over sheer volume of content in the worlds they create.
Frankly while I've played almost all the ES games (and enjoyed them) I've had difficulty getting "in to" the Fallout games as once the player leaves the Vault(s) the visuals of the atomic wasteland are rather boring and uninteresting.