The first part is not something I’m going to lay at the feet of this genre. Every category has them and it can be done fairly or poorly by any game, really.

I’m with you on the second part. Can you even design a game that empowers the player while every other player shares an almost identical story and you are seeing that all the time? Again, ludonarrative dissonance in the extreme and that’s not something most players can swallow. That’s that theme park-y feeling.

I think if the right game was made with clever instancing, something to appeal to all the subcategories of MMO players, and a pricing structure that isn’t unfair in today’s landscape, it could work. Who wants to volunteer to make and risk that though when you can make something magnitudes cheaper and more likely to make money?