Here are my experiences:
I didn't like the concept in Oblivion, but I accepted it as part of the game. It was probably easy enough to turn it of and play without it back then, since the Quest Journal worked in a similar way as it did in Morrowind - most information was there. I just didn't care enough about Oblivion being disappointed in the game as a whole to do something about it.
Skyrim is a different case. I really tried to resist the hype and was pleasntly surprised by the game's similarity in concept and atmosphere to Morrowind. I also believed what devs said about compass being a matter of choice. At first I tried playing with it on though and I even managed to simply not looked at it most of the time. Much to my surprise and anguish it turned out to be physically painful to have it on (yes, my eyes actually suffered from strain when I had it on). And it wasn't because I tried so hard not to look at it, what I realized was that it worked as if my hair was constantly falling over my eyes simply because it was now in a very uncomfortable place on the screen. With both my weapons drawn and the compass above them, my field of vison shrinked to a square the size of one third (or even less) of my whole screen.
That's only half of the story though. Of course I turned of the compass manually (from the config file that's in the folder with savegame files) and then the real fun started. Being used to detailed descriptions of quest goals and hints in the Journal in all the TES games I played (2,3 and 4), I was faced with a huge surprise. There was almost NOTHING about locations in it. What's more, I couldn't even ask an NPC for directions, because the dialog options describing the quest disappear more often than not once you accept the quest. And it's not like the guards are any help at all (I really preferred the talking signpost versions from previous games).
I'm still playing the game this way though. It's extremely hard to find some places, even the map markers are not always very helpful, but I manage. My only complaint is that Bethesda seems to have focused so much on making the game menus as scarce as possible that they forgot about players that like their games for the depth they offer.
What is your take on the case?