Wanting something to be true doesn’t make it so. I played, and I even enjoyed big parts of it (after heavily modding, to be fair). I think it got more hate than it deserved, but in no reality can it be considered a really good game, let alone their best.
I really enjoyed the story missions, but the procedurally generated stuff got old fast. Im going to give a few years when all the DLCs are out and someone gives is the Wildlander treatment.
What they needed was a lot less empty planets and a lot more that looked populated (not occupied by a small outpost; populated, by a civilization).
The beauty of Skyrim (and I guess fallout, though I hated the guns so much I struggled to ever get into it) was that you could just wander if you got bored. You'd just point yourself in a random direction and see what popped out as interesting. Many of those places would be moderate sized cave systems that brought you out somewhere completely different, where you were free, again, to just pick a direction and explore.
It doesn't feel like exploration to go to an empty map with a base that you kill everything in, then backtrack back to your ship every time.
I wanted to get into outpost building in Starfield but I just can't get past the question, why am I doing it? Everything is needlessly gated three times over and I don't get any utility or story out of it.