A few points, in terms of choice Elder Scrolls games have incredible amounts of choice. The player really gets to define their playing style, equipment, dialog, and morality. Additionally you could create 2 identical characters and give them to 2 different players and by after say 10 hours of game play there would already be incredible differentiation between them, based on what those individual players emphasized.
A lot of the anger on this thread could've been avoided simply by reading the article. Tom specifically talks about not focusing on "accessibility" but on making the experience less confusing whether you had played Elder Scrolls before or not. One of Oblivion's main weaknesses is that if tried to create a character without any real idea on how you were going to play, you were screwed. You simply had to start over, which meant that you had to agonize on every little detail during character creation. In comparison if you look at COD, you simply start playing multiplayer and pick perks, weapons, and weapon modifications as you go, and if you find something is less useful than you hoped, it isn't a big deal.
Given that COD is the most successful game out there, not looking at what its doing well would be foolish. Imagine a car company that had heard about vehicles with good gas mileage but said "NO! Our customers only care about horsepower. Now, where are those blueprints for the V20's?"
