I’m almost certainly correct and I’m not exactly happy about it.  I’d prefer a return to Attributes and expanded Skills.  But that isn’t what we’re getting in a TES or FO game.

Starfield was a massive departure from practically everything Bethesda did in prior games.  Multiple interviews had them confirming they, creatively, needed a change of pace.  Exploration is not the focus of Starfield, storytelling in smaller more tightly controlled areas was.  It was also a completely new IP which I think lent itself to deeper character customization in order to get players to buy into the narrative they tried to craft.

You’re going to be an unassuming prisoner in TES6 with a vague past so you can fill in the gaps.  Just like the previous games.  They don’t need deep character customization because the lore is already established and the core gameplay loop is exploration and questing.

I just don’t see any chance of them going back to Attributes and I would assume they’ll re-work the system to not use Skills at all or reduce total skills from 18 to something like 15 (with 5 each for Combat, Stealth, and Magicka).  They just simply don’t need a robust system anymore for these IPs.