and I find out the ‘mortgage’ has no penalties

I mean... welcome to Bethesda-style?

When I finally do get there the house is empty, and not all that fun to be in. No special quests etc tied to it.

I can see the value in tying a few quests to it. So is your preference that they gutted the background system entirely? Other than the parents, there's very little unique content tied to them. They're just "flavor".

was visiting The Eye for the first time. There was this big pile of trash in a corridor used as the block to the door to prevent further exploration

Honestly, this feels like DLC-bait to me. I can see why you'd want to "repair the eye to full working order" and maybe we will see that in the future. But for reference, there's notes that imply the rest of the Eye is fully depressurized and needs to be repaired but time and money don't allow for it.

• reviews from folks further along in the story and gameplay giving a bad impression made me move onto something new

This is what I think is happening with most people. They see reviews and they sour of an otherwise great game. I saw this happen with the Wheel of Time show as well.

I also didn’t resonate with any of the companions to a degree where I found them actively annoying to be around. I know some would say ‘just don’t loot’ but their constant calling out people who like to loot was annoying too.

This is a common Bethesda thing. If you want to be as thief, the list of companions that are ok with you stealing from everybody is fairly slim.

but what systems did you feel added more substance to Starfield

For me... to start, I'm a tES lifer. Most of what I like is the things tES does consistently. Grand-Theft-Spaceship. Low consequences. Decente stories for each faction. A good main plotline. Neat mechanics to play with, a few more than you really need. I enjoyed making ships and bases, playing around with powers.

Wide-not-deep is the Bethesda manifesto, but it works for the right gamers.