I see, now I understand; thanks for clarifying ^_^
I think backgrounds and extra info about characters, history and such, could add a bit of flavour to the setting. I don't think this kind of content and the one that may be used to affect gameplay are mutually exclusive. But, at the end, everything depends in the general idea of the game -its identity, direction, or whichever name you wish to give.
And certainly, Bioware games tend to give insane amounts of background for almost everything, specially the latter titles. I agree with you: the contrast with gameplay limitations is irritating. Unfortunatelly, I see it as a consequence of the homogenization in the AAA industry. Nowadays, all producers want games to have almost every ingredient that made a blockbuster hit sales.
