[rayvio]

well they remain optional, and they do have some good moments (personally I found some of Leliana's romance to be adorable and Alistair is sometimes hilariously awkward). it's not entirely off topic though given that Bethesda have allegedly confirmed romances in Skyrim, although given that the interview in which it was stated was a translation (from German I think) it may just have been misunderstood and meant relationships as in friendships between characters. personally I think it's great to do things like this to add more character interaction but it does need to be done well. the problem is that since it's optional (as it should be) it's presumably a lower priority to devote resources to writing it
I don't think inclusion of romances is the reason for some of the 'dumbing down'/cutting some elements of gameplay though, that I suspect is more to do with mainstream customer demands. while many gamers do still love complexity they're no longer the majority so developers are having to make at least some of the complexity optional and when that's not possible reduce it. if Skyrim does feature romances and if the game is even more 'dumbed down' than Oblivion I doubt the two will actually be connected