It's not arrogant or moronic. It's telling the truth.
Same goes for Oblivion (although I can remember the Emperor and Martin but that's about it).
Ditto, I can't remember 5 Skyrim characters. Li.. er.. Liana? Whiterun king guy? Bron? Bran? Oblivion is a zero, except I remember the face of the emperor's relative or son or whatever guy, he looked so absurd to me.
My lack of confidence in the story content in the side quests is based on the structure itself. There aren't any ways to bring a strong narrative in a 3 step quest. In the thousands of side quests I've done in games as diverse and varied as Skyrim, Aion, Xenoblade, WoW, all the Witcher games, and all the Bioware games, there really isn't such a thing as a comprehensive side quest. Nor is there generally a way to have a vast world that also is full of rich and interesting details, it's budgetary and time constrained.
The best side quests ever are usually akin to a really good commercial or something.
The only really fun "side quests" are ones that are basically main quests, like in BG2 with the class quests which were extremely comprehensive even though they were technically optional.
The same goes for BG1 honestly. I wouldn't consider either of those games open world so much as shotgun game design, it had a very heavy linear narrative for the most part, even though it also followed the conventions of D&D with classes and forests to explore and find a pack of hob goblins and so on.
With Witcher 3, I haven't caught wind of a main story at all, as far as I know, it's not even based on the novels so far.