While Fallout 4 is a great game in certain aspects, it strayed from Fallout 3 and New Vegas by focusing a lot more on crafting, settlement building and radiant quests. As a result, there was a lack of well-written side quests and rich stories to find during exploration. This concerns me because the trend Bethesda is following is making their games more like Minecraft than making a rich RPG with good stories to tell.

What are your thoughts on this trend and how do you think it will affect TESVI?

Neither Fallout 4 nor Skyrim had a lack of rich stories to find during exploration in comparison to their predecessors especially Fallout 4. Never mind that exploration was considered one of the most horrible aspects of Oblivion or New Vegas.

As for quest lines though, you are right. Fallout 4 and Skyrim were definitely horrible in terms of quest designs compared to their predecessors with pretty much everything basically being a mindless kill or fetch errand with virtually zero creativity behind them. Well at least the writing is an improvement in Fallout 4 compared to Fallout 3 which isn't saying much...

So based on that I assume TES VI will have a better story line than Skyrim (again that's not saying much) but with probably the same bland quest designs or Divines forbid even worse. I'm hoping I am wrong of course.

No worries, by the time of TES6 Minecraft is but a memory, and BGS has [censored]d out their game to whatever the fad is hot at that time

TES has always been a sandbox game. It's just an evolution of what you can DO in a sandbox game.