In terms of scope and role-playing, Daggerfall is by far the best game in the series. It actually attempts to create a massive world where absolutely anything is possible. The fact it takes two REAL weeks to walk across the land mass shows just how much content it contains.
Morrowind was a massive step down from Daggerfall in almost every way... but that focus on a more linear and directed experience helped the atmosphere. And Oblivion, while having its many issues in vanilla form, has been completely altered by the mod community on PC... into a game with a pretty sizable scope and quality (OOO's mod is the thing that makes Oblivion worth playing).
Skyrim... we know nothing about. For all we know it could end up being worse than vanilla Oblivion. But my money is on that it will be better. How much better? That is anyone's guess... but I know the mod community will be there to pick up any broken pieces Bethesda let fall to the floor.
The major thing Bethesda needs to drop is the skill-based levelling system. It doesn't work and ruins the role-playing (especially when you don't have the vast quantity of skills like those in Daggerfall). They need to swap it out for Obsidian's experience system in New Vegas. Skills are meant to vary what the player is capable of doing... it has no bearing on their "experience." Along with that, the world needs to be a tad bigger (at least 50 square miles) and have more variety (bordering High Rock and Vvardenfell could add a ton of variety if they utilize it)... not to mention they should take full advantage of the Daedric realms they started in with Shivering Isles.
Other than the voice acting, there really wasn't many problems I had with Oblivion. Bethesda definitely needs to steal a bunch of ideas from the Obsidian play-book in terms of role-playing, but they need to keep up what they are doing with lore, atmosphere and world design. It is why I keep coming back to the game nearly 5 years down the road and see myself playing for a long time to come.
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