JRPGs are still largely built on the House of Grind. Until that changes, the only real selling point for me might be the story (Infinite Space had a pretty good story, but the gameplay felt very very very shallow, and the grind made it even worse...)
Unless the combat is somewhat involving (Tales of the Abyss) or the grind is alleviated (Suikoden 3 has scaled exp and level caps), I'm afraid I'm not interested anymore.
Among Action WRPGs...well, the closest thing we have to a true blue hybrid is Oblivion.
Sadly, Oblivion has superficial depth. I say that because while it has access to amazing Mods, its core content hides behind some truly broken gameplay design.
Oblivion might have had a chance of having real depth if:
1) It didn't have that ass-backwards leveling system that scaled every single thing to your level. By eliminating any sense of difficulty or reward, you have in fact killed most gameplay incentives to keep playing.
2) If combat wasn't so bloody predictable. Every single spell was either a bolt or ball variant if it wasn't a buff. Hitting enemies with ranged spells felt suspiciously bland and boring.
Melee combat was greatly improved from its predecessor, but I still think it could use some expansion. Namely, to differentiate between the melee attacks.
Hand-to-Hand combat was utterly fucking worthless. Perhaps a grapple function would work, but I wouldn't want it to turn into a God of War "insta-rape QTE" attack.
Bow Combat was excellent though...or at least the Bow Physics were. I hope they improve on throwing weapons, because the animation is still really freaking clunky.
I haven't played Dragon Age yet, but from what I've seen, it's fairly repetitive but well-written (as is standard for all EA-era Bioware titles).
Does this mean RPG design has become dumbed down?
Of course it does, but that's due to the market shift from PC to console (every RPG has to compete with WoW now, and that's a losing proposition).
Console controls are not terribly conductive to complicated games. A keyboard can provide the player with (in practical terms, not literal or mathematical) close to 40 inputs, all easily in reach, and a mouse.
An Xbox 360 or PS3 controller has to condense these effects, so the game design shifted to adapt to this limitation.
Just like how every shooter limited your arsenal to Halo standards (2-5 weapons), so do these new RPGs.
Turn-based RPGs used to be more popular because of their alleged depth, but that all died out with the advent of RPG-elements being squeezed into every genre conceivable.
FF13 took criticism for not involving the player all that much, when the intent was to streamline the gameplay to match these new standards.
