Sorry for the delay, my net went out, :
But there is something to agree with. You're just not thinking about it deeply enough. Human law and order or elven liberation. You need to be able to look past the personalities. Character-centrism is the way of the Biodrone.
In theory yes, but execution is what matters most. Looking past the personalities is kind of silly to say. Yes Human Order vs Elven Liberation is a theoretically interesting conflict but in execution it's just a bunch of violent murderers on both sides. I'm judging the conflict as I see it in the game because these are the major parties and ultimately what they stand for is what these leading personalities believe, not what the concepts mean in theory. In much the same way that you can't judge real life politics based on what 'liberalism' or 'conservatism' theoretically stand for but what the actual politicians promise to implement.
Still, if you're just choosing between positive option A, or positive option B, where is the real difficulty in that? It's like choosing between Pepsi and Coke -- just a cosmetic difference, really.
I think consequences can be positive for very different reasons. Using FNV as an example, let's look at House vs Independence. House will promise a lot more economic stability, he will directly intervene with the market and with heavy taxes he will help to build up solid infrastructure and businesses. He will stay mostly out of the way of the peoples' lives unless he believes they threaten his position in power- which means a number of potentially 'dangerous' factions will be forcibly killed off by the player or House's army.
Independence allows the player to let all the factions live in peace without destroying them or devaluing their culture. The player can help these factions become self sustainable but without any further technological progress and encourage a more diplomatic relationship between various splinter factions in conflict. However without the funding that a larger governing body like House or NCR can provide some factions can slip through the cracks and suffer as a result.
Now in a post post apocalyptic setting what is more important, that all these people can live as they want without any imperialistic invasion of their personal liberties but without larger infrastructure and businesses- basically living on a tribal level with only a moderate degree of tech, or that a few of the factions have larger support and funding leading to technological progress at the cost of potential civil liberties and the like? This is a legitimately interesting choice because these are both positive values but for very different reasons and what is the 'best' choice varies from player to player. These aren't assholes with no chance for hope, these are people actually trying to make the world a better place but through very different methods and very different results.
And most importantly, this choice isn't a purely aesthetic one- these are very much different consequences.
And again, I didn't put a ton of thought into that scenario, literally made it up off-the-cuff, and I'm willing to admit it's not perfectly thought out.
No I completely understand, I wasn't trying to pick on you specifically but instead addressing something that generally bugs me, and your post gave me an opening to do so and for that I apologise.
Now I'm off for more adventures in the middle of nowhere, I'll be back in a week or so.
