Some months ago I played the game "Clue" with my girl friend and mom. It had been many many years since I had touched that game. I found it was just as boring as it always was. You can find out information very quickly without asking anybody, just by paying attention to other players questions and behavior. I won the game each time. I hardly even had to leave one room to find out all I needed to know. Why are crapy games like this so popular when there are so many better ones on the market today? And way are most of the classic games on the mass-market have blahhhh de blas frikin blah "themes". I have one educated guess: the mass-majority are empty.
Anybody want to compile what not to do in board game design here in this topic?
Magician,
I think the answer you are looking for is that american culture is like that: "empty" and "sameness".