Just a great read!
It reminds me of when I picked up Fable 2. I like to roleplay my single player RPGs in my first play through. I brought a friend over to play with me (Couch Co-op? How perfect!). As as we strolled into town, he said 'he check this out' and he started slaughtering the entire village. He killed everyone and everything.
After he left, I reloaded my game to find my alignment the most evil it could be, everyone hated me, and any characterization I had made up in my mind was destroyed.

It took forever to become 'good' again. Ugh.

But, in any case, great article. I completely understand and sympathize.
So many have abandoned the story-telling and notion of actually playing a character for the power-leveling, 'l00t' grabbing gameplay styles that just turns games from 'fun' to 'work'.
R.I.P. RPGs.