For me it's about quest design and quality of content. I do have issues even starting some games because I have only so much time for games and if title looks like quest design is sort of modular. If I don't need to remember every detail from the beginning to enjoy the game, or which NPC I wanted to recruit but couldn't at the moment, etc. it's okay if I can get back to it again week or sometimes months later. Otherwise I may leave it. This is not to say what cRPG's should be, but that is nice to have options.
That said overall quantity can't replace quality. What comes to cRPG's there are few things maybe worth consideration.
Trash mobs might ended up being part of tropes because of accident. Way back, some folks in SSI really didn't knew what they were dealing with and simply started adding them because they didn't understood what was the real function of monsters in earlier Gold Box games. I think some studios are fully aware that trash mobs are questionable at least, but I can see the temptation of adding repeating tasks without real challenge, grinding to give (false) sense of progress to player and make game longer by using the same mechanic, artificially. Or to put it short: There are studios that exploit the trope.
Games are one format of media among others. Books, films or say, music albums aren't judged only according to how long these works are. Of course people don't want to pay price of novel for short story, or buy price of feature film to see 5 minute short and aren't willing to purchase CD singles for the same cost as albums and games shouldn't be different.
But there are also games that don't have interesting content for 60+ hours. The Lord of the Rings (novels) take a while to read, but they are something that even an adult can read. Lot's of fiction I have tried, don't have that quality. Taste of music is subjective and so what constitutes a good album. But there is interesting anecdote regarding Ricky Martin's 1999 album. There were people calling on radio stations asking if that album really hadn't any other playable songs than 'Livin' la Vida Loca'. Nope, despite all the requests and effort, no was the answer and people who bought the album, well they get the full album to enjoy, technically. For purpose of entertainment, in practice they got a CD single. Films, what about the length if content is something like 'Ass' from Idiocracy?
Games should be held to same standards as other media. Epics have their audience (Fallout: NV for example), modular approach is also very well tested (Shadowrun games for example).