Zaleukos very indept, it's been so long since I played DaggerFall, Morrwind or even Oblifion I didn't remember all your points until you mentioned them, thanks.
I couldn't agree more, when NoN was release I starting trying to reorient myself since there had been a patch as well since last I played.
The Massive amounts of Mods just trying to fix the game, so now since the patch most all previous Mods had to be updated.
This means if you had a set of Mods which at least made the game tolerable, you can only hope the Mod Authors are still around and you can find the thread.
Good lord have your tried to do a search on the offical forums, it's total insanity with a mind numbing number of post to try to sort through.
Add to this trying to get a grasped of the available Mods is beyond spending a couple hours of catching up, I proabably spent at least 3 nights of about 4 hours each and just scratched the surface, it will concievably take the time it would to actually play the game certianly 40 hours to get really up todate.
Plane of Oblivion was a joke, remember how they were guarding it as a secret?
Lol, can't imagine why.
I agree just skip the Main Quest the talented actors give the MQ a little life but there is only so much they can do with poorly written story once you have to deal with the gates.
Even though there is a talented team of Modders that Rebuild Kavch and allow you to be ruler this means having to deal with the MQ and all the nasty gates.
Oblfion is like a relationship from hell, sure you want to try to like it but it constantly bites you.
Edit
txa1265
You can actually finsih the Grey Princes quest before fighting him and Spoilers;
He begs you to kill, even refusing to fight back in the arena.