In the interview with Matt Firor, he mentioned there were 5 statements that Todd Howard gave as the foundation for the game - but not what these statements were. Here's what I hope they'd look like.

1. "Adventurer" is one profession among many.
This means the aspiring blacksmiths, thieves, bankers, bards, shopkeeps, etc. a. have fun things to do without killing anything, b. can progress tradeskills entirely through the things in part a
(Hiring adventurers to bring back crafting ingredients is, however, encouraged. Ideally, take any NPC quest giver and imagine how to put a player in that role.)

2. Allegiances are not all set at birth.
This means all races can guild together and group together outside Cyrodiil pvp. There should also be smaller pvp conflicts where players can choose sides based on conscience more than race.
(Example: an isolated fort that can be claimed on behalf of orcs or necromancers. Any race can pick either side. Winner affects nearby quests and spawns for X hours.)

3. Home is where the heart is. (And gameplay is where the home is.)
Players should be able to claim somewhere in the world as home, and the game should respond to this. This is not about hearthstones or owning buildings - NPCs in one's hometown should respond differently.
You'll have to roam far and wide to really progress, but your chosen home should never become obsolete or irrelevant to you regardless of level. Radiant-like quests should crop up that aren't available to people just passing through.

4. Interaction is more important than convenience.
If someone in Elsweyr needs ebony bars, they should talk to a player recently come from Morrowind and haggle on a price - not pick an anonymous lot someone listed in Ebonheart that gets mailed automatically. Quests should come in all geographic scales - some across town, some across aetherius. Sometimes, you should need help from players outside your area of expertise - a lock picked, a scroll deciphered, a letter of introduction from someone better acquainted with the nobility.

5. Nobody's story is the same.
Suppose there's some cave in Skyrim full of mooks. Alopho the Altmer and Nils the Nord team up to take it on. Nils doesn't have Alopho's objective, because its a procedural step between two handcrafted segments in another province. (Alisa the Altmer got a different cave.) Alopho doesn't have Nils objective, because although Nils is experiencing a handcrafted story specific to the cave, the quest giver visits people at random. Procedural hooks instigate handcrafted adventures and vice versa.

These are some really nice ideals to flavor the aesthetics of TESO and insure that this title remains an Elder Scrolls game. I hope they look like that too.

I didn't know he was the CEO of ZOS as well as Bethesda =D Or did I? Hahaha

Bump for truth.

Ironically, UO delivered on these principles far more than any game since, partly because of its lack of polish. Polish goes hand in hand with homogenization.
All of the OP could probably be distilled to this: People who want WoW will play WoW. Fans of the Elder Scrolls want a sandbox.

^ Is that Ken Rolston?

Agreed and yeah, it is.

I wish those statements were true, but I doubt it.

I am a fan of Elder Scrolls and the I ly thing I want is a good game. Theme park or sandbox, I'll just take a good game.

I wish, believe and hope that your first statement is an actual one. It won't make sense if it isn't.

To compare one MMO with another - adding such things to WoW has long been discussed and always comes down to one answer, which lies in its name. World of Warcraft. It's in the name of WoW to kill any and everything. Whereas in TES, it is not.

Also rooting for #4 and #5.