I've been away from Skyrim and the forums for a while. Figured I had given things more than enough time.

I don't believe Bethesda has not fixed the lip sync bug yet! Have they even explained what causes it!? (Rhetorical question.)

I'm not arguing this for the sake of starting some sort of legal issue or debate about responsibility; I'm arguing this for the sake of polishing this game up to what it should be. It's one thing to have to deal with issues like z-fighting or quest bugs. A game this huge and detailed is bound to have some things that just don't work optimally. But lip-syncing used to be borderline perfect! Now they've INTRODUCED a HUGE, very in-your-face (no puns) bug and let it sit there forever.

This is like an artist painting a beautiful picture, adding a magnificent frame, then taking a red highlighter and scribbling in the middle of it. You've just ruined a piece of art! Why would you do that??? Pick up the paints and fix it. Please. How can they break something this significant and then wash their hands of it?

Not only are they artists, they are also a business. They have other obligations, other huge pieces of art to produce. Granted, a patch should have been produced, but it's not because they dont care, it's because they dont have time. I'm sure any company that puts that many hours into developing a game really truly cares about their art, and i'm sure they want to fix it. But again, no time, no money. Business, yo.

I could accept this of an indie developer or a budding company dealing with their first-time release. But you have to be kidding me if Bethesda doesn't have enough money or the ability to spare three people (for what, a week?) to sit down with the 1.9 update and re-write the offending code. For god's sake, they made over $500 million dollars during their first month of sales. The Unofficial Patch team has fixed thousands of errors in the game for free since it's release. But a AAA, independently funded software development team can't pull off one engine fix?

Your argument is valid in most cases, I agree. It's not really applicable here. There's either a legal issue which keeps them from modifying the game further, or they've simply closed the coffin on the title and buried it.