The two kind of play off each other two. Fewer stats and ways to define your character create fewer entry points for feeling like you've been rewarded for making flavorful or personal choices. "Man, repair is useful but the fact it let me join the Brotherhood was sweet."
Versus:
Did you put points into Speech or not?
I felt like FO3 made a stab at some of that but, like a lot of Bethesda games, it gets watered down or can't adequately cover the vastness of content they churn out. Skyrim just doubled down on that.
The problem with this is that Beth's design philosophy didn't actually use any of those stats in any way ever, so they might as well be cut. I thought Skyrim was an improvement over Oblivion in that regard.
While Oblivion stats may not have hooked into dialog well if at all, they did still provide some granular, enjoyable progression. For thief/agility fighters, being able to level up your run and jump speed was awesome. Compared to Skyrim where, you were pretty much like every other guy out there until you'd gotten the perks to provide that specific bonus. Rather than a granular progression, it's a lurching upgrade scheme where you play half the game under one set of constraints, before magically getting better.