Fiction is UO's glue, always has been. It's the boundaries and limitations of the sandbox, and in a sandbox-type game, more than anything else fiction gives meaning to what the characters do. Quests are nice, I like quests. But at the end of the day it's the fiction, and little else, that really defines the meaning of what goes on inside UO.
Changes to the game mechanics, by contrast, will always please some and **** off others; both the content of the changes and the mere fact that they are being made at all.
They are to be praised, not criticized, for keeping up the fiction.
Not to mention that the dichotomy you present, fiction vs. changes in the game, is a false one, as false as the dichotomy between competence and communication a dev team member snarkily implied recently. If not more false than that.
-Galen's player