I forgot about Ni no Kuni.

Ni No Kuni felt like a glorious 16 bit JRPG in todays systems, but I understand that rising budgets have forced a niche genre to cut corners. Honestly, if the battle system is good and the world and characters likable I do not mind the lack of open worlds (which I do like) or reduction in NPCs.

Unless another Final Fantasy VII happens this is what the genre will likely be given the sales its games command. Even Xenoblade for all its accolades this generation did not sell close to what many publishers demand of games they give insane budgets to (looks at Square Enix and Tomb Raider).

I have learned to deal with it given early part o this generation was almost no JRPGs to be found just happy to play my favorite genre again with so many great 2013 entries.

It's very late for me so no complete and serious answer...

Please do not bring the traits of Wrpg's into Jrpg's (this is old-school defining, so wrong in 2013). They do not need open-world gameplay, at least nothing more than FF's or DQ's had.
Trying to cater to the FPS and Action-oriented gamer is what is ruining the genre, nothing more.

I generally dislike lumping all Japanese role-playing games under the blanket term "JRPG" pseudo-genre, because it ignores the tremendous amount of diversity between each developer (the same could be said for western developers). The truth is that each developer puts their own spin on RPGs. From Atlus's SMT: Persona, to From Software's Dark Souls, to Monolith Soft's Xenoblade Chronicles, they each pull the RPG genre in different directions.

Capcom's Dragon's Dogma is probably the primary example of what you seem to want (day/night cycles, open, interactive world, etc.), which I enjoyed greatly, although I found it a bit lacking on the narrative side. Regardless, not every game needs those sorts of elements, nor does every gamer want them.

Why does open world automatically mean West?

Like you said xenoblade has really move the genre forward in my opinion.

You have me interested. I completely ignored Dragon's Dogma because It was said to be a western Monster Hunter and I dont care for MH. Is it a RPG or MH styled game?

It seems that TC thinks that Final Fantasy 13 somehow represents the entire JRPG genre.

If you really have owned more than 90% of the PSX rpgs, and have played those games, then you must have loved those rpgs.
I really wonder how you can be thrown off by them now.
Or by the way those rpgs are these days.

I you have really started with FFIV, which I doubt because of what is written in your first post, then I think it's strange how you want rpgs or jrpgs, whatever, to change.

I have a totally opposite opinion.

You are 24 for years now, and you talk about you have started playing rpgs with FFIV.
Whatever man.