Yes, it dropped some of the needless B.S. that shackles the RPG genre from evolving
Can you expand on this because I have no idea what you mean.
Massive inventory management, huge towns with little of interest to actually explore, wall upon wall of dialogue trees, combat decided more by dice rolls and stats than by skill, an overall increase in the time you spend
managing the game as opposed to
playing the game, etc. It's hard to put into words, honestly, but I just see a lot of older RPG fans get so caught up in the minutiae of what RPGs have always been that they forget what the core values of the genre are that separates it from other genres: Role Playing, Exploration, and Character/Story Progression. Everything else should be disposable if it would better the particular game overall.
So you have a game like Mass Effect 2 (and to some extent Final Fantasy XIII) come around and try to shake up the status quo a little bit, and everyone starts freaking out beyond the actual flaws of the games themselves.
I have my issues with Mass Effect 2 (like how somewhat monotonous the combat can get towards the end of the game when it's literally wave upon wave of guys rushing your chest-high walls), but it was overall a very refreshing experience for me.