I'm fine with that the impact of my choices between games is small (sure it would be great if the game would diversify this much, but I'm being realistic about it and I rather have this than nothing at all).
This is the biggest mistake of all - you are seeing it as a zero sum item, where having the import is bringing a small value, but it's better than nothing. Because it arguably is much WORSE than nothing - the Save Import has a toll, narratively speaking as well as development cost.
The Urn of Sacred Ashes, a powerful artifact that could change the entire conversation in terms of the true divinity of Andraste, was a huge choice in DA:O. Returning to the Temple in DA:I, you'd think that choice and how it affected the world would come into play. But nope... the Ashes are gone, the impact swept under the rug.
The ability to kill an entire Circle of Mages, an option given in multiple DA games, most notably DA2's climax, should have greatly reduced/enhanced the Mages numbers, not to mention their ability to recruit based on sympathy. But nope... the story happens the same, which. Enters these past choices, making them "less" than they were presented.
I could talk about how Orzammar could be the most powerful army in Thedas with the anvil, how who the king/queen of Ferelden for a decade is should change a game where you spend half the game in that country, or the eye-rolling cop out that was The Dark Ritual... but I'll stop. There IS a narrative cost to the Imports. If the game set a canon that certain events occured and that was that, it would be understandable. But with the Import system, a reason is given to weaken these choices, to dismiss these events, to hide these narratives. Not to mention it seems to result in much more of a railroaded, "because thou must" type of story-telling. All because there's too many threads to follow, too many balls in the air, to allow any real choice. Future games will break under the strain of another game made like DA:O, so instead every side quest is linear and bland, while the main story still only has superficial choices that don't result in any net difference once the dust settles (survivors of Haven, anyone?).
What I would really like is that if I could experience a greater impact of my in game choices within that particular game itself.
And that's the rub - what you want is directly hurt by the Save Imports. Why? Because every resource spent on a divergent choice from a past game is less resources spent on choices in the current game. Is the benefit the Save Import brings, with its cameos and side conversations, worth more than a better current game experience? Because that is a very real concern. Either the game will need exponentially more resources each game to deal with the increased Imports, the import references themselves become less or even smaller, or the current game suffers. Those are the three options - is it worth it?
I really don't see it.
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