The same can be said about other popular genres, like FPS. I've had trouble telling the difference between games within the same genre for a while now. Most of it is probably because I don't play a lot of games anymore. These minor changes, I think, are made for those who actually do play many different games and can pick apart the minor differences so that they can't say all too easily, "Oh, it's another clone of X game." It tends to work, too, or so say sales and gaming culture. But when we all get down to it we're all playing a "re-envisioning" of age old systems.

This is more or less why I gave up on FFXII before I even left the first city. It felt like FFXI with FFX's sphere grid, the former of which I had had my fill of for some time. There was a time where I'd wait a game out a bit for the story, but it's very hard to do that nowadays. Especially when the stories in games have also become quite recycled. These sorts of games just don't feel as fresh as they did all those years ago, though to be fair that goes for a lot of things.

Honestly, the idea of "character advancement", popularized by D&D and what have you, has become one huge trend or gimmick for PC/console RPGs. 25 years ago or so it was a necessity as the hardware just didn't exist to support much more than linearity and basic number crunching. With our present tech more could be done in other areas, but we instead spend our time doing what we've always done. Certain games could and have done different, but the norm hasn't changed radically in these past decades. But I suppose that wouldn't sell, particularly in super conservative Japan.