I don't mind NPC schedules at all, it's not because I'm all about 'realism' so much as 'believability.'
NPC's who stand in one place...for all eternity, nary a bathroom in sight (are they just holding it in?), the complete absence of anything resembling a child. Sure those are all standard game tropes that we can argue might streamline gameplay one way or another, but the counterpoint I would offer is that half of the point of an RPG in my opinion is to create a different and interesting game universe for you to explore. To that end when a game doesn't have little details like that then the world looks to me at least incredibly fucking fake and it'll grate on me to no end destroying any illusion of immersion.
NPC's who stand in one place...for all eternity, nary a bathroom in sight (are they just holding it in?), the complete absence of anything resembling a child. Sure those are all standard game tropes that we can argue might streamline gameplay one way or another, but the counterpoint I would offer is that half of the point of an RPG in my opinion is to create a different and interesting game universe for you to explore. To that end when a game doesn't have little details like that then the world looks to me at least incredibly fucking fake and it'll grate on me to no end destroying any illusion of immersion.