Squeezing money? No one's forcing anyone to purchase a DLC/expansion, and you get a full game, with 100's of hours of play (if you want to find/do everything) for $60. A 20-30 hour (minimum) expansion for $20-30? Squeezing money? Hardly. Of course, you can just WAIT a year or so and purchase the full game with all expansions for the same $60. You're need for immediate gratification and your inability to delay that gratification is not Bethesda's problem.

On "the lore"... Please. Any "lore" that exists is PAST. Don't be a dweeb who argues that the Enterprise can't possibly survive this or that attack because of some schematic in subsection A of deck 9. You ain't Scotty.

Plausible explanations can create any number of possibilities. For instance... a pocket of dwemer located in a deep recess, shielded by powerful magic remained untouched. Unfortunately, they also lost the ability to break down the shield and return. This opens WORLDS of possibilities, including, but not limited to, falmer slaves and the possibility of their uprising. My personal preference would lead to this as an expansion... a throwback falmer, born as the snow elves of old, becomes something of a falmer "moses". He leads "his people" out of the last (known) dwemer city. The player discovers this through the falmer (indirectly, through Calcelmo). The player can side with either the falmer or the dwemer (or neither) as one main quest. Although the falmer escaped, how they did so remains unclear, and the dwemer are still but a rumor initially. The MAIN main quest lies in breaking down the barrier that keeps them sequestered (Eye Of Magnus/Psyjics). I agree, there's some heavy hinting at this being a distinct possibility, including the world "not being ready" for the Eye. I know a lot of people enjoyed Shivering Isles. For me, it was meh. I'd prefer a non-daedric expansion. Anyway... beat the Eye main quest and you unlock Dwemer as playables... 'twould be an EXCELLENT expansion, IMO.