Possibly not important to the majority, but I know there are others like me who probably ask themselves the same question, now beforre I get started, I'm not trying to down play the work of the devs, as a modder I know what goes into creating a game like this, but.....

What world do you come from where dry cracked wooden surfaces have a gloss/shine, it's not just wood, there are other surfaces that should have a matt finish but they shine like they have been polished, let me explain, a wooden palette near the ocean might end up with a polished look, put the same palette in the middle of the mojave and it's going to have a course dry matt finish after being subjected to very dry conditions and course sand.

Whats puzzling is that this has been the same since Oblivion, yet modders have come up with texture replacers that have corrected it, but still, the vanilla's get released with the wrong look.

...Ratiation magic?

There could be elves running around throwing buckets of water over all wooden surfaces?

Late at night when nobody is looking, all the Garden Gnomes come to life and begin polishing every surface in the wasteland...

:D