I have to agree with your first paragraph.. I found some guild quests and messing around with char mods and love lab more fun.
Ngl, i'm not a huge fan of Bethesda's games.. I tried Fallout NV a few years ago and i uninstalled it 5 hours later.

Btw lol, how it's not going to get boring if you played it for like 190 hours.. It took me 200 hours on a game to get bored and try speed running.