For my part, I think becoming the 'leader' of the various guilds is pointless beyond tradition. I just want to do all the quests associated with them. In fact, if I could do them as a mercenary instead of a member, I'd be perfectly happy doing so.
I don't want to have to create a horde of characters to experience the game's content. After the first couple times, starting over gets tedious. In Oblivion, you started in the center of the map and could go in any direction in a new game. That helped, but even then there was a lot of repetition involved. If you wanted access to the arcane university, you had to do all of those recommendation quests each and every time. How many times do you end up rescuing that crazy old lady's rats from the mountain lion?
In New Vegas it was even worse. You started in a corner of the map with only one real direction to go. So you end up following that road from Goodsprings, through Primm, Nipton, Novac etc. over, and over, and over again.
I don't want to have to repeat early stuff over an over again to get to content that had been closed off to me in previous plays because somebody bought into the notion that 'meaninful choices' means that doing A means I couldn't also do B with that character.
If I want to explore all the content of the game I'm going to pay for with one character, it should be my prerogative.
If I understand correctly, you seem to be arguing that because you personally do not intend to play through the game more than once, that all the content should be available, to spare you from the boredom of playing a second or third time.
Would you also want to have some magical means of changing your race, so that you can experience all 10 races and genders during one playthrough?
How about the fact that Radiant Story changes the quests around every time, based on all the variables it tracks during each playthrough? Is rescuing the sister of Lucan the Baker from the clutches of the Witches' Coven of Whiterun in order to receive the Staff of Everscamp really equivalent to rescuing the husband of the Wolf Queen of Solitude from a group of racist nords to receive a magic staff?
Should the level cap be increased to 280 so that you have a chance to experience all the perks during your playthrough?
Should all of these things be eliminated so that you don't feel you missed any content, even though it means that for those of us who intend to play multiple times, that our second, third, fourth playthroughs will be a lot less enjoyable?