I was watching "...why Skyrim?" by Razbuten on sloptube this aft and it's so weird that it finally took Starfield for people to realise. Like Fallout 76 wasn't enough, only now are negative things people were first saying about Skyrim in 2012 finally bleeding into mainstream consciousness. It's so wild, like wow they ruined the magic system? The game has worse writing than a PS1 era Mega Man X game??? Skyrim is just shitty Game of Thrones?? Welcome to thirteen years ago!!
Bethesda hasn't made a really good game since 2002, but it'll probably be years before that realisation sinks in.
Personally I've found that if you just install the unofficial patch, 5 of the unofficial patch-patches, 30 bug fixes, 300 model fixes, 8 NPC AI overhauls, 3 perk tree mods with their cross compatibility patches, 10 magic rebalancing mods, your economy mod of choice, all of Jayserpa quest extension mods, DYNDOLOD and all its requisite resources and tools, the mod that let's you adopt more than 2 kids, one of the three rival lighting mods, an autopatching framework, and at least one mod that nerfs Draugr deathlord health, then Skyrim becomes a pretty passible RPG.
Plus there's plenty of optional mods you can install!