Those events that are scripted to occur when you get near a settlement or pass through the gates, always as though they were afraid the play might miss them. They make the game world seem to revolve around the player in a ham-fisted way. I shall list them:

• Idolaf and Adrienne are always arguing over a weapons order for the Legion in Whiterun. Even if you arrive in the middle of the night.
• After dealing with the pointless shakedown attempt by Riften guards, Maul is always standing there to give you a stern lecture. Even if you arrive in the middle of the night.
• Brynjolf openly walks up to you and solicits you into joining the Thieves Guild in a very flimsy manner.
• Upon first setting foot in Markarth, you see a woman attacked by a Forsworn agent while browsing in the market. Even if you arrive in the middle of the night.
• The miners at Left Hand Mine stand like statuary until you come within ten meters to hear how Forsworn took over Kolskeggr Mine. Same with Karthwasten. Even during the night.
• Rolf Stone-Fist and that one beggar are harassing a dunmer woman when you first enter Windhelm. Even if you arrive in the middle of the night.
• The public execution of Roggvir is timed to occur the exact moment you first set foot in Solitude. Even if you arrive in the middle of the night at 1:00 a.m.
• During the quest "Bound until Death," the wedding scene is set to occur on an infinite loop until you murder the bride as ordered. Not even nightfall will break this sequence.
• If you have not yet chosen a side in the Civil War, the first dialogue between Tullius & Rikke in Castle Dour and between Ulfric & Galmar in the Palace of Kings will restart from the beginning every time you enter the room. No matter the time of day.

So why again do we even have NPC schedules....?

It's not the schedules but the limitations of adding the spoken word to a video game. First thing, if you have a text based game, you just have to pay a writer to create the text. With voice acting, you have to pay the writer, the director, the dialog coach, the actors, the recording and sound engineers, the studio rental etc etc. So, it gets expensive to add background voice acting to flesh out the world.

I would rather hear a babbling undercurrent of voices when I enter a city with no individual conversations heard unless I activate or closely approach an NPC.

Technical limitations, or 11/11/11 take your pick.

EDIT: Personally I'd rather have those pre-made dialog scenes fire off at specific times of the day so that, for example, if you arrive in Solitude at night, it won't play but if you enter the Solitude worldspace during the day, the execution cutscene happens. So in this way it's possible for the player "miss" some scenes but not completely.

The Ulfric speech is the most annoying part of this. Good lord, you could probably do your groceries and come back before that damn speech that everyone harps on about as being 'great' finishes.

Most of those could've been solved by locking the gates at night.

I agree. You can add Mjoll and Aerin, Sapphire and Shadr to the Riften portion of the list. Poor Shadr has it really bad since he gets to spend the rest of the game stuck on that bridge if you ignore his quest. So much for that "job" at the Riften stable.

Beth were really heavy-handed with the way they pushed quests at the player throughout the game. I hope they can come up with a better system going forward.

Similar to Daggerfall?