JRPG's aren't dead. And your datalog excuse is far from being fair. Mass Effect tells a ton of story through the logs themselves. Why suddenly that's a different standard for JRPG's?
I do agree though, that FFXIII relied way too much on cutscenes, but that's an inherent fault to FF itself, especially the post-SNES FF's and the appearance of FMV's.
But as a genre itself, JRPG's are far from dead. DS JRPG catalog alone can pretty much put to shame every home console WRPG and JRPG combined (except maybe Demon's Souls and Lost Odyssey).
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