It’s moreso confusion over the fact that Bethesda did seem to recognize that people wanted classes and/or backgrounds for their characters, but then didn’t actually commit either to their clear preference in storytelling and character creation, and neither did they commit to the storytelling potential that giving players fixed choices with no customization brings, they literally know every single background they have to account for and then they dont account for them.

Like why not just make a freely customizable class system in that case?