I hated most of those Sierra games, with the exception of SQ and LSL, not because of any of the things you mention, which are valid problems, but because Roberta Williams was the worst game designer ever. All of her games were dull, even the supposedly horriffic and titillating Phantasmagoria, which I managed to finish in about 6 hours, despite the fact that it was on, like, seven CDs.

I've played fairly few adventures games that I thought were excellent sing Infocom went out of business. Even the ones commonly referred to as the best, like Full Throttle and Grim Fandango, were merely good. Oh, for the days of Trinity again.