Actually, they've been cutting away at their games' freedom of exploration since Daggerfall. Which would be understandable if they used that reduction in scope to improve the writing and the storyline. But, apart from 1 or 2 quests in Oblivion, they did nothing of the sort.
I would agree with that, but after playing Shivering Isles, I'm prone to think they can tell a good story, create good characters, and establish and overall atmosphere. They just need to keep the scale smaller, or trust their best writers with everything. I guess we'll see.