In my opinion, TES:III was so great mostly because of the journal and lack of a quest log. No pointers showing you where to find your objective, simply the name of the place and a new square placed on the map showing you where it was if you could find it amongst the other squares on the map. Geographical regions that you probably memorized that could help hint more at where the area might be. You'd run out to the nearest silt strider and ride as close as you could to the area but from there you were walking, enjoying all the random encounters and miscellaneous places before you. In Oblivion the quest helper was added, placing a marker for wherever your current quest was at; absolutely brainless. Then you could probably also fast travel there... And now in Skyrim, too. I really hope that for the next Elder Scrolls game, these feature are dropped or perhaps have an option for disabling. It really ruins the atmosphere of adventure, exploration and discovery which I found to be the golden touch to the Elder Scrolls series.

I know that there's been plenty of posts about Fast Travel, and I'm also aware that it's probably not going away. But what about the questhelper? Is this really necessary? Leave less to voice acting and more to good story telling.

Morrowind's "journal" was a disaster prior to the Tribunal patch that made it indexed and usable...

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1311878-official-beyond-skyrim-tes-vi-4/