Yeah, Morrowind was flawed perfection. Absolutely towering experience. Since then the whole sandbox genre has mostly been a lot of narrative hand-holding and unfinished ideas about how to tie the plethora of systems together in a more purposeful sense without losing too much traction. It's like they're slowly trying to find their way back to the depth and self-sufficiency of the world they managed to create in 2001, but with the advantages of modern technology and UX design. Maybe with the next Elder Scrolls game they'll finally get there.
Speaking of Morrowind, there's a group of fans who are recreating the entire game within the construction set for Skyrim right now, with semi-professional voice acting and everything. They're aiming for a release at some point in 2016. It looks pretty amazing:
