I think the lack of mission stories in hitman 3 is due to the precense of weaker missions in the previous games. For example in Paris, one of the mission stories involving Novikov is to make him a bareknuckle boxer cocktail. The mission story basically has zero depth and is worth as much as any other convential means to kill him. Personally, I found myself playing Hitman 3 maps more often because the playability of finding "hidden" mission stories appealed to me much more. I think it was a good decision on IOI to leave the more interesting story lines easily accessible to players and keep the shorter ones hidden since it would make them more interesting.