If we are talking about if RPG should be more like Sandbox Simulations I going to argue that it's a YES.
The thing about RPG is the eternal "what is a RPG?", RPG is a term that represents a legacy of influences and tropes from its wargaming roots to Dungeons & Dragons tabletop to its adaption on a computer under the CRPG umbrella and so on.
It has very little to do with "Role Play", What is actual "roleplay"? Its not a nice thing to acknowledge but its to play pretend, we have to be honest those LARPs are doing actual roleplay even if its far from our CRPG sensibilities.
Roleplay is not about choices and its not about consequences and its not about combat or skills. Its acting in a world, its collaborative storytelling with the GM with the system used as a moderator so that the players don't pull bullshit on each other and keep things organized and moving along.
Not you might say I don't need your stinking "acting", who cares if its not roleplay? I want my thing that is CRPGs!
And you are right, you don't need to act, people go on about character builds all day long but the fact that they optimize for the best and treat that like some achievement means they don't really care what the characters represent, and even if they did it would be pointless since the games themselves would not be about that since they cannot act. All you would get at best would be some shitty choices and a gimped character that can't complete the game.
Now I am going to get to my main point, the thing is playing pretend is not simple at all! We can do it because we are humans! And its the reason why no computer RPGs have been about roleplay. The only case where it could happen is in a Sandbox MMORPG or the old MUDs or other freeform multiplayer games. And even then the experience would be limited compared to PnP RPGs.
So here is THE question, Why is that? Why can't we have that kind of experience on a computer game?
The secret lies in something the GM has,the player have and everyone who writes fictional books.
It is the Representation of The World, the personal view of the world.
When a writer writers a fictional book he uses the experience he has of our real world and changes a few things but works roughly the same. It's why there is the advice to write about the subjects you know about from personal experience, because only through experience can you write with any kind of depth.
In a Tabletop RPG you add some rules and lore to change that real life representation of the world into the fictional one, but the original still works in the background. This is why merle adapting a RPG system to a computer no matter how complex and detailed is pointless because it does not have the original representation of the world.
The Real World is an objective system that follows its own logic rigorously, a human's experience might know some parts of it and other parts might be faulty, science has yet to understand its full logic, especially of those meatbag creatures called humans with all their psychology,behavior, society and culture. But we know plenty enough.
So what are Sandbox Simulations? It's simple, it's creating a Representation of the World from scratch, every action, every system, every AI, every interaction, every consequence painstakingly coded to give a world its own logic, a simulated fictional world.
Of course there would be some cheats and abstractions built into the system because its impossible to follow the complexity of the Real World logic. But like human experience we can get close enough.
The more in depth you can make the Representation of the World the more you can the experience of the game like a fantasy book. You can live in a fantasy world. It is not exactly roleplay because nobody is forcing you to act and its not exactly a story either.
It can still have its goals,challenge and systems as a game to make it a fun experience.
To some extent games already have their own Representation of the World. A classic example is The Sims where everything is simplistic actions and progress bars, its simple but it works.
Another example is Crusader Kings where every expansion continuous to refine it's Representation of the World with new systems, actions and story snippets.
This is what I consider RPGs can do in the future.
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