You're right. The game doesn't dangle shiny objects in front of your face to get your attention. It simply presents the world to you, and tells you that you're free to do as you wish. If that doesn't interest you, you probably won't like the game.
I feel like that's a vast embellishment of it. I love games where I can go off and do whatever I want and I generally do so. I'm not just talking about the main story, I'm talking about everything. Morrowind is a pretty interesting world, but there's really no catalyst for the desire to want to see more and, in comparison to games nowadays, there really is not all that much. Perhaps I'm spoiled by stuff like Skyrim (a game I don't even have a positive opinion of), but my adventures of traveling off the beaten paths of Morrowind so far have consisted of finding caves with mean people in them who want to kill me and finding nests and stuff. You guys seem to think I'm trying to disparage the game or something when I'm really trying to like it and understand why people froth at the mouth about it. I want to like this game, so I'm trying to have a discussion about it.
It's interesting that you feel spoiled by Skyrim, since it has fewer locations and less variety among them. Concerning dungeons: Skyrim has 176, which include Daedric shrines, caves, Dwemer ruins, mines, forts, and ruins. Morrowind has 224, and they include caves, ancestral tombs, daedric shrines and ruins, Dunmer strongholds, Dwemer ruins, grottos, mines, and Velothi towers.
Skyrim has 16 settlements, which range from major cities to minor cities to towns. The only variation in architecture is between the five major cities. Morrowind has 27 settlements, including Ashlander tribes, imperial towns, Dunmeri towns (Hlaalu, Redoran, or Telvanni), plantations, and the four major cities.
I could go on. Factions, weapons and armor, spell effects and enchantments, clothing, types of creatures, skills. There's more of pretty much everything in Morrowind. The claim that "there really is not all that much" compared to games nowadays is demonstrably false. I know this is definitely cheating, but include Tamriel Rebuilt in those numbers and you can quintuple everything. We may never see a mod of the same scale created for any other ES game.
Each interesting artifact in Skyrim is almost invariably both levelled and/or attached to a quest. In Morrowind, there are dozens of artifacts that you'll only find if you happen to stumble upon them, and they aren't scaled to your level.
Are you using any mods? MGSO (Morrowind Graphics and Sound Overhaul) is an excellent collection that does exactly what the name suggests. I'm very picky about my mod selection, so I'm usually wary of compilations like this, but it is assembled with great care. It's also comes with a very simple installer.
Here's an album of some of shots of my setup. I could froth at the mouth about Morrowind all day. I like hearing reactions from new players. Especially if they aren't enjoying it, because I like having my jeromes rumbled.