The last "pure-adventure" game I played and truly enjoyed was Still Life, and even that I found the game's pacing to be a bit slow and repetitive.
I think that's one of the major downfalls of the "pure" adventure style (at least for me), is the sometimes mundane and boring elements. i.e. watching your character slooowwlyy walk across the entire area which you've been to like 20 times already... or trying conversation trees over and over until you get the correct one.
Yes we all still love the old school games, but I think most of these attempts at innovation stems from an effort to improve these bad elements of adventure games. Personally I think going 3D is a great platform because when you're exploring with your character, you feel much more involved than just watching a character walk across a static, 2D world. At least the world around you is moving... and that, for me, makes it interesting.
Examples of this would be the jump to full-time 3D rendered environments in the Resident Evil and Final Fantasy series, as opposed to the previous 2D, pre-rendered settings. When I first experienced FFX and RE4, I was amazed at how much of a difference the dynamic environments made. When the world around you comes to life, it's much easier to be more engaged in the game.
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