I'm sure there are other ways to have completed the quest, but what was notable to me was that I didn't make use of any weapons or skills or anything to complete it the way I did.
And yes, it was a rare gem of a moment, and I ultimately agree with you Ioric. Unfortunately, that's just the state of PC games right now. A genuine role-playing experience is really really difficult to accomplish, and just having a couple moments such as that one is enough to make a game notable in that respect.
It's possible to make rpgs more about actual role-playing, but the amount of effort required increases exponentially to the point that it's not wise from a business standpoint. This can be alleviated somewhat if game development is approached from a procedural-generate-EVERYTHING philosophy, much like what Dwarf Fortress is doing, but even this is much more work than your typical AAA title. Especially if you consider how graphic commercial games are expected to be. The more possibilities in the game, the more production labor must go into graphically and audibly representing everything that can possibly happen.
This just isn't going to change in commercial titles until either technology or business models improve drastically.
I actually didn't like Oblivion all that much, to be honest. I felt its controls were near-unplayably clumsy, and its character building mechanics encouraged you to do really ridiculous things (like jumping constantly everywhere you go to train jumping skill
). I didn't come close to finishing it, and actually never even bought it. I borrowed it from someone.
I'm interested in trying some mods for it, though, now that it's had some time to age.