250 programmers working 7 years could have made the best co-op mode for skyrim that gaming has ever seen. Skyrim could have had 4 player drop-in drop-out co-op and double the amount of space to run around in. Seriously, Skyrim is friggin awesome. Why the heck didn't they make use of this other team of programmers to produce even more Skyrim? Something like that would have kicked this game into legendary status.
As noted, ZeniMax Online is a different studio. They've been working on things for about five years, but there work has no impact on Bethesda Game Studios' projects past, present, and future projects (Fallout 3, Skyrim, Dawnguard).