I don't think anyone is actually lamenting Van Buren as such - its more of a question where things are going (eg Fallout 3), because everyone who gives a damn about "old school" RPG games knows that their time is up.
And if the new kids on the block were convincingly better then I would be the first to join the parade. However its obvious to anyone who hasn't started gaming yesterday that the new stuff is sh!t.
There's no way around it.
Games have become too much of an investment to screw around with, so recycling proven stuff is the order of the day.
Thus the only wildly different things come from small studios, with an occasional indulgence from a big studio (eg Mirrors Edge).
To cut the long story short, Fallout, BG, Torment etc are dead and its a testament to such games that we're even talking about them today, because apparently they could inspire something in the people who played them.
Sorry, I just dont see anyone lamenting Fallout 3, Crysis, Oblivion etc. in a few years time, let alone a decade. Which is why I'll keep insisting they're sh!t, as long the batteries in my wireless keyboard last.