you're focussed on the same few pearls over and over again.
In a way. I'm an avid adventure gamer and play and replay them constantly... I alway look for new titles as well as the old ones that I might have missed. I pride myself on having played over 350 point'n'click adventure games (This number doesn't include LBA, Alone in the Dark & other adventure hybrids that I also enjoy). I'm always looking for quality in the games, good challenge as well as good entertainment.
I can understand attractions to certain games. One of my personal favorites is Day of the Tentacle which is far from being perfect. I enjoy games that are well written (Any games by Legend), have good challenge (Sierra here), humor (LucasArts mostly... Gilber or Schefer...) or made to blow up my brain (Nine: The Last Resort is probably my favorite myst-clone)...
I also have nothing against an interactive story (Dark Eye for example is simply brilliant)...
Nothing against 3d either... Gabriel Knight 3, Tex Murphy or even Normality...
It's just playing through recent adventures I encounter either a heavy emphasis on imitating the classics (Like with both Ankh games which I had to practically force myself through, or countless Myst clones) or not enough of any of the elements that make a good adventure games... Many seem to rely on actual "puzzle" puzzles and forget to pay attention to the story, while others are nothing more than interactive cartoons.
Let's face it. None of the great companies of old (Sierra, LucasArts, Legend and others) are not gonna re-hire the staff that they were too soon to fire.
Even the fact that adventure games are more active recently doesn't mean that the genre is alive. To me it's nothing but little convulsions.
To me the little hope that's left lies in the Wii... The gaming world is rooted in consoles, so maybe with the new control method the genre will spread more actively and maybe we'll see some action in the future...