I found Morrowind boring. I thought Oblivion was a complete waste of money. I thought Fallout 3 was the exact opposite of what Fallout 2 was - it was made to be huge and shallow, unlike FO2 which was in a small world, but very detailed. In Bethesda games, you don't play a hero, you play a tourist.
So, I had no expectations of Skyrim, and I was very pleasantly surprised.
TBH, I don't feel like RPGs these days are RPGs anymore.. they're just for people who like playing with stats, and games which try to sell a story without any gameplay. Skyrim was actually a rare, true RPG. You actually do save the world, and when you do, people actually recognize you. Not only that, but they went a bit further and gave recognition for other little deeds too.
From start to finish, it provides an ideal RPG experience... do what you like, be a hero, destroy the world or save it, get legendary artifacts, etc. There's the good old cliches like innkeepers giving quests, guilds for all the major playstyles of the game, etc. So, heck, I give it a 5/5, definitely RPG of the year, and a good benchmark for the whole decade (even with the game killing bugs).
Right now, I'm having fun making a naked autistic Nord with a pickaxe, specializing in sneak attacks