Would rather not have something half-finished that I have to pay full price for. I don't want huge gaping holes and obvious tell-tale signs of left-out content. Either get it all done in time for the deadline, or finish it post deadline as a "sorry, the evil powers that be made us publish this game before we were ready, but we'll finish it soon so you won't have wasted your $60 to $80." Or just scrub all signs of left-out content from the game so that no one is the wiser.

And they already did delay Oblivion once. A second time would've been overkill. Just think of all the things that might've been cut had they not delayed the first time.

You seem bound and determined to make out people in power as static individuals simply because they have specific military limitations placed on them.

That "little more than spying on each other and contemplating possible alliances" is the fuel for nearly an unlimited amount of scenarios that can be stretched out into a huge web of quests. That they can't exact physical warfare against each other is irrelevant. The Elder Council, other Counts, and how they can be manipulated, can earn action and dangerous consequences just as much as a blade can. To bring up a short sampling again, we have: Trade agreements, Imperial funding, Social networks and alliances, disputes over economic assets, matters of impugned honor. Never mind that small little issue of a whole county seat that got eviscerated by Daedra and is now sitting empty and devoid of leadership.

To be honest, this whole argument chain is sounding like, "Thick politics are not present in Cyrodiil, because Cyrodiil has no thick politics."

Unfortunately, adding totally new systems like Physics, radiant AI, and fully voiced dialog can be expected to meet up with problems, unforseen costs, and delays. Budgeting the development time tightly enough that the game failed to meet deadline not once, but twice, means that either the amount of time needed was badly underestimated, or that the initial plan was too grandiose for the time and resources allocated. I'd expect that Bethesda now has sufficient capital at its disposal, following the commercial successes of both OB and FO3, that they can maintain sufficient "reserves" so that the company won't go "belly-up" if the next game doesn't ship on time.

I'd much rather have a game that's RIGHT, two years from now, than another "half-fast" attempt in a year that we'll spend the next 5 years complaining about, here on the forum.

Not that it wouldn't be too much of a stretch, but looking at the big picture, just about any TES game has vast amounts of "wasted potential".

Unfortunately, adding totally new systems like Physics, radiant AI, and fully voiced dialog can be expected to meet up with problems, unforseen costs, and delays. Budgeting the development time tightly enough that the game failed to meet deadline not once, but twice, means that either the amount of time needed was badly underestimated, or that the initial plan was too grandiose for the time and resources allocated. I'd expect that Bethesda now has sufficient capital at its disposal, following the commercial successes of both OB and FO3, that they can maintain sufficient "reserves" so that the company won't go "belly-up" if the next game doesn't ship on time.

I'd much rather have a game that's RIGHT, two years from now, than another "half-fast" attempt in a year that we'll spend the next 5 years complaining about, here on the forum.

I know politics are a bit of a touchy subject around here, but I'll go ahead anyway. When I began to play Oblivion I was hoping to see a development in the storyline that would have driven the Empire to become a sort of a police state. Whilst being a good guy and all that, Ocato would have been overly suspicious of assassins and terrorist, and would have started a witch hunt to imprison and execute all daedra worshipers (a kind of a patriot act if you will). Obviously Ocato would have considered Martin as a hoax and he would've probably set a bounty on Martin's head. This would have brought much more suspense into the plot, since you and Martin would have been hunted by Ocato's allies all around Cyrodiil. As Martins champion you would've had a much harder task to convince the counts to support the out-of-the-blue emperor.

Unfortunately, such options had not been incorporated/considered in TESIV, and my character ended up being a powerless faction leader in all the factions.