An interesting choice of words for a thread title. It's always nice to see that I'm not the only one who feels this way.

I truly do believe they did, not because they should have released more expansions or content but because of how many bugs the game was left with and unfinished content that was left present in the vanilla release. They supposedly "lost" a large amount from a hard drive failure, imagine the game being released without that happening, what could have been? I think they could have managed it's development better, tested it better and as a whole spent at least 1 more year on the game.

The game is the way it is and I agree that it was time to move on, but even after it's release they could have supported it more and fixed the major problems the game had at the very least. but the patches they released fixed little insignificant things that no one would have noticed. The FormID bug is the only exception to that and they probably wouldn't have done that if the community had not reacted to it like they did. This is the wrong way to develop a game and it will only lead to poor community relations which will only alienate fans like myself. I have been boycotting all future games from Beth, and I also do so with many other developers who take their customers for granted.

I prefer the mods that regular users make instead of the official ones. In fact, sometimes I disable the real official mods to make room for user mods. Here are some good mods I use.

Gameplay
Deadly Reflex: It allows you to do awesome moves during combat which helps and your enemies do the moves too so its not immersion breaking.
Realistic Hunger/Sleep/Bathing: Its only for those who love realism. Only use it if I don't do long quests.
FCOM: I've never installed it myself but my girlfriend did and she loves it. A combination of the 4 biggest overhauls.

Quests
Tears of the Fiend: One of the most beautiful quest mods ever created. The only drawback is no voice acting....
Heart of the Dead: Another great quest mod on par with TotF. Has voice acting for all the major characters. 3 possible romances.
Lost Spires: A more down to earth quest mod. Still great though. Has voice acting.....I think(havent played in a while)
Battle for Castle Ravenpride: Never tried it myself but heard its a really good mod.

Weapons/Armor
Hashshashin Armor: Perfect for sneaking characters and maybe mages. Just adds Assassins Creed armor in white and black.
Adonnays Elven Weaponry: OMG!! Best weapons mod EVAR!! It adds perfect balanced weapons(wears down to fast though).
Ramuskas Fantasy Store: I like the armor more than the weapons but its still a great mod with awesome armor. Best combined with Hashshasin armor IMO.
Midas Magics: Not much of an armor/weapon but great for mages. Adds over 500 new spells with unique animations and powers.

Companions
CM Partners: The only companion mod I use. Perfect for adventuring parties. Adds lots of new NPCs who you can recruit.

WOW, you guys are awesome. I had no idea there was so much community-made Oblivion content, thanks guys!

Responding to some of the comments, I don't think I expressed some of my points as clearly as I wanted to... Ok, let's try this. Aside from wanting Bethesda to expand the borders of Tamriel and support the game a bit longer with an expansion or two, I ALWAYS thought that the towns in Oblivion, even the Imperial City, just didn't have enough NPC's in them. Take the market district for example: you'll see 5-10 people walking around at most, right? It's the freakin' Imperial City! There should be 30-50 people walking around! And I can't even remember the last time I saw someone steal food or pick someone's pocket and get chased by a gaurd for my viewing enjoyment. Or how about any tavern/food joint in any of the larger towns or the IC... where the heck is everybody? I expect the taverns to be tobacco and grill smoke filled, with tables packed full of hot-tempered burly travelers and criminals. Instead you walk into taverns and there's maybe 3 people minding their own business at tables and a guy behind the counter. *YAAAAAAWWWWNNNNN*

Seriously, they could have made the towns/city/taverns/market places/docks etc a littttttle more active. Are there any mods that fix this? Any mods that make the towns or Imperial City more lively?

Also, should I install FCOM instead of OOO & MMM by themselves?

Thanks again, everyone!

in my opinion i actually like having the streets less crowded. i would get bored faster if everyone on the street was just a clone of the same person standing 10 feet away(GTA series). i also feel it adds a sense of immersion knowing that everyone has a unique role and name.but back to the topic i think i would rather have an entirely new game than a repolished old one.

Nah, I'm not really looking forward to dropping 1,500 bucks on another new computer just so I can play the next Bethesda game. Forget Oblivion being old, buying a new computer every-other game release is getting old. I saw a video on YouTube with some graphics demos for ES5... and yeah, looks like everyones gonna have to upgrade again just to play it.

Then you were tricked. There is no documented anything for TES:V, including graphics demos. We don't even know if Bethesda is making it for sure or not (though we can heavily insinuate that they are).

did they moveo n from oblivion too quickly...maybe...but only in the bug fixing department.

what is worse is how they have just dumpped fallout 3 the moment the last DLC was out, they never bugfixed that game...leaving all the work to modders and the console users in the dark...

They better learn to stick with it else their games are gonna geta bad rep (hell anyone that know beth games dont buy them until the first patch is out now anyway), wont take muc hto say "Well look how buggy the last few games have been, I get a different one that works".

I saw what they were claiming to be a demo of a creature they are developing for the game, nothing much other than that. Looks like whatever it is, it's going to take serious hardware upgrades to run.

Anyway, I just checked out the FCOM wiki, which really didn't give a step-by-step installation instruction and it looks a little too advanced for me. It said "some fair knowledge about OBMM and Wrye Bash is required"; unfortunately, I have absolutly none... *sigh*

That's nothing new for Bethesda. They did the very same thing with Morrowind and Oblivion. Unfortunately, we can probably expect the same for ES5 as well.

I love Bethesda's games but their customer service is hideous.