The problem is that the spice and flavour of Skyrim was not using the fast travel and just exploring.
With modding to add random encounters and roaming friendlies/neutral mobs, Fallout 4 was great too. Even more so recently with the flyable vertibirds so that you could get the in-game fast travel that used resources.
But neither of those can exist in a game where fast travel is a core and unavoidable gameplay mechanic.
I think it's perfectly capable of being used to make a compelling game, but Starfield seems to be a game for which the strengths of the engine AND the strengths of the writers and designers at Bethesda are completely mismatched.