While some of your comments ring true, this one does not. Bethesda has always been about dynamic environments that invite you, the player, to create the story around it. The addition of radiant objectives also was a step in that direction. It’s the very fact that we have required quests that are linear (story) that rankles a lot of the players. We enjoy that dynamic environment. You stumble upon a mini story of someone that left loot somewhere and you follow along, seeing that they were murdered for it, etc.
Real examples:
The story in the Bowling alley in Far Harbor
The Vault Tech rep you meet in the beginning
The Giddyup Buttercup inventor
What was going on at Dunwich Borers
The Cheers Bar
I mean, a lot of them aren’t quests, but they are small peppered stories all around the game. And I love that. It makes things seem so much more inviting/scary/sad when you get engrossed in them. Sure, log entries are kind of a cheesy mechanic to relay some of these, but … how else would you do it? It’s hard to convey some background information in a totally graphical game. It’s even harder when it is a post-apocalypse where the majority of other characters are out to kill you. Who is going to sit you down to tell you a story? Fallout 1 and 2 had the advantage of a text based story playing out with on screen movements/characters/battles. I’m still quite impressed with what is in Fallout 4, despite agreeing with your point about the main quests.