There have been three traditional gameplay modes in The Elderscrolls:

Wander around seeing the sights
Kleptomaniac's paradise (stealing everything in sight)
Killing everything that moves

I love the addition of puzzles to break up the "kill everything that moves" which is what you do in dungeons. But how about letting the player do something constructive rather than just ruin the entire world. There's plenty of examples to draw from, managing your own guild and shops in AC Brotherhood, managing your empire of property (though never done that well) in Fable 2 and 3, building your own town in Two World's 2. Give us something constructive to do, something to build rather than just "ruin X's whole year and/or kill them"

In Morrowind you built your own mansion. And none of the games above did anything more than add just another simplistic mini game. I do understand that it feels gratifying to feel you actually make a visible, positive impact somehow, but personaly I would only want something in those lines if it was more expansive and much better implemented than anything we've seen so far.

For the record, none of the games you mentioned did anything revolutionary. Building, managing and the like have been done in much, much older games (Baldur's Gate 2 for example, and I am sure in even older games that I can't recall at the moment)

The AC2 level of 'city building' was pathetic (I like the actual gameplay though), not to mention the rewards are awful, get more gold from city you expanded? Who cares, I have enough money to buy out another city if I could.

What?

How about play through the quests? You know. The main focus of the game.

Quests arnt the main focus of the game. Are they? If they were I wouldnt be playing skyrim. I agree that it is an important part but if the whole game revoloves around quests than its not elder scrolls.

On topic. The crafting system seems to be adding a lot to this part of the game.

Sure, you can ignore quests all you want, but TES is very story driven. Quests should certainly get more attention than wandering around, stealing things, and killing people. If you want to just do those things that's fine and well, but if you're asking for something constructive to do, then I just can't understand that when you have quests that can make you be part of the actual ES universe and be a driving force that can make or break the world. That's pretty damn constructive if you ask me.

I'm just not sure what the OP is asking for.