Hmmm. To be honest I think we're riding Obsidian a bit too hard here. I actually think a big part of their issue is that they have had a horrendous string of luck in finding the right publishers and business partners.
As I understand the issue, their problem is very similar to what happened with "Troika" in that they tend to want to make games for a mature audience, and when they actually develop at an "M" level as opposed to a "T" level being presented as an "M" level, the people backing them tend to freak out. This leads to a lot of abandoned code, and in many cases with them going back to previous builds of a game shortly before release when people outside of their team who have a say, tell them to basically cut out integral parts of the content.
While it's primarily a story about Troika, there was a big issue with how Atari forced them to basically gut "Temple Of Elemental Evil" because of a lot of content that was based on quests out of a whorehouse. That whorehouse still exists in the code, along with most of the quest assets, and there have been patches to unlock it. Supposedly the infamous "gay pirate dentist" bit was a deliberate act of rebellion on their part right before their company went under.
Allegedly something very similar happened with "Neverwinter Nights 2" where several entire romance questlines were removed from the game, including a lot of material featuring a certain Tiefling thief. Not to mention the oft-commented on bit about how the Neverwinter festhall transformed into a dancehall in the second game.
Bethesda is one of those companies that used to have something of a reputation for making fairly risque games and not being afraid to push the envelope. While the graphics weren't great, some might remember the "adult filters" present in "Arena" and "Daggerfall". If you had them turned off you'd run into NPCs (albiet unmoving stilled ones) in various compromised positions and the like as you moved through the game.
Bethesda on the other hand pretty much lost any guts they had, and started cow-towing to the ESRB and FCC not too long ago. There was this big thing about them absolutly freaking out over fan-made nude and sex patches because they got attention from "the authorities".
Given the kinds of things we've seen from the people making up Obsidian in the past, and the existance of things like "FISTO" it does make me wonder how much was cut from the game, and if they were again forced to go back to an earlier build in the 11th hour.
I think Obsidian's problem might be that it's simply difficult to be a developer of games for a Mature audience, in an industry currently infested with spinelessness. Something that is going to get worse if The Supreme Court winds up giving the goverment the abillity to violate our freedom of speech when it comes to video games.
Truthfully, I think we'll see better quality from Obsidian if they wind up ever being given total creative control over their own product, and no producers standing over their shoulder, getting all miffed when an "M" rated game actually winds up being well... Mature.
