I was betrayed yesterday by the amazing reduction in equipment slots from Daggerfall to Morrowind to Oblivion. So on a quest just now to see if the number of books or their content has diminished as equipment slots have, I found it's the opposite: the number of books has increased. One can see this self-evidently by examining these lists:
http://www.imperial-library.info/books/daggerfall/by-category
http://www.imperial-library.info/books/morrowind/by-category
http://www.imperial-library.info/books/skyrim/by-category
I actually sighed and said to myself "At least they haven't reduced that."
Not everything was reduced. It seems they mostly just cutdown on technical or consuming things. For example, if one strives to enchant all of their equipment in Daggerfall or Morrowind, it's a time consuming process. On the reverse side of this it does allow you to change your appearance moreso, especially in Daggerfall. Still, mods in Oblivion and Skyrim (and Morrowind as well) allow lots of customization which vanilla does not HAVE to provide.
Here's hte list I have compiled so far of things which make Morrowind differnet from later games and some plaeyrs might like:
1. You can levitate/jump very high to skip or creatively travel which tends to make travel more non-linear
2. Conversation is more flexible via keywords and numerous, as most of it's text-based, although a lot of it's generic and repeated from one npc to another - if you use imagination then no npc just says a couple lines of text
3. There're no automatic map markers or compass headings for quests/locations
4. More factions (10 vs 6) and gaining rank is more picky (stat/skill req)
5. A deeper enchantment system (for items) and spellcraft system (nonexistent in skyrim) for spells
6. It's harder early in the game
7. The graphics and creature names are more unique
8. Less and less equipment slots from each game to the next (24+ > 18 (Morrowind) > 9 > 8)
I'm looking to expand this list, but it needs to be factual data, not opinion. If anytihng on this list isn't factual then I want to know so it can be removed. It's only whether a data is preferred by some which is opinion. For example, one could rightly say the name "Morrowind" is data and is preferred by some players. The data would be factual.
I also would like to add a data point for stats/skills, since I know they were reduced in later games. The fact a stat or skill is not included in Skyrim is just that alone. Whether it's preferred by some, again, is just opinion, not fact.
I can easily argue reduction in skills is not loss of depth. For example, if Critical Strike and Slashing and One Handed are all separate skills, yet are combined in a later game as a Slashing Weapons skill, I could easily argue nothing has been lost, since the player can still use 1 handed slashing weapons and get critical hits. I guess the only loss one could allege is that of the player having to choose between Critical Strike and another skill or having to choose between one handed weapons and two handed weapons, but all of that assumes skill points were so scarce a player had to choose. It also assumes the later game doesn't have skill perks or other expressions for these things. It has to be closely examined. Evenso, the argument would likely be weak.