I think Bethesda just has an inability to grasp subtlety, which is probably the greatest core problem with their writing style. It often acts as tunnel vision and lets context fall by the wayside.

I don't see the need to put so much weight on subtlety, especially in a world as bombastic and "in-your-face" as the Fallout world. But I wouldn't mind seeing something like the example you mentioned in the final product. I would prefer, however, to see more subtlety in the main questline and side quests rather than simply the environment - that's where it can really thrive. Still, I can forgive Bethesda for being a little direct with the way they do things, especially in a tutorial area where capturing the interest of the player is paramount and being direct is the safe bet. Also, I wouldn't completely exclude subtlety from the game environment - there are scattered instances of this in both FO3 and FNV. An (admittedly poor) example of this would be seeing the charred remains of a two adults holding hands, enjoying their last moments together before the nuclear apocalypse. I've seen small moments like these littered across the Capital and Mojave Wastelands, where you infer what happened and understand the true emotional trauma of the apocalypse. I hope (and I'm reasonably confident) that such moments will also be present in the Boston Wasteland. We'll only know after we play the game.

And speaking of interface, the new interface looks absolutely horrific...When the armor interface has a list taking up about 60% of the window, a picture of the character taking up about 60% of the rest of the window, and a tiny box in the corner describing the actual stats of the armor piece. The gun display is even worse, with a rotating weapon behind text, with both roughly the same color. The super smooth HUD bars have serious issues conveying granularity, the XP gain numbers enforce 4 digits despite most of the seen XP gains being single digits, and there’s just a general sloppiness aside from some neat icons on the compass. This ambiguity/sloppiness even extends to actual useful information. The ‘fire rate’ of a laser pistol is 50, which has no intuitive explanation. Is that good? Bad? Is higher better (shots/minute), or is lower better (time between shots)? Why do laser weapons have recoil?

You're right that there isn't much finesse with the way they created the new interface, but I don't see this as being significantly detrimental in the grand scheme of things. Sure, it'll be a hindrance, but I'd prefer to look beyond that at the flaws that truly matter, such as the use of subtlety in their story-telling, as you mentioned earlier. Additionally, I don't see a problem with simply looking up what the gun values mean in the manual or online and committing what those numbers mean to memory. Sure, its not as useful in that regard as FO3 and FNV's interfaces, but again, I don't see it as a major dealbreaker, even if Bethesda chooses not to revamp the interface. It may be just me, but after I play any RPG, I rarely delve on the pitfalls of the interface. I may remember that it was an occasional nuisance, but I don't let it get in the way of my overall opinion of a game. I don't think about whether Skyrim had a good or bad UI - I think about the pitfalls of the game's main quest, and how I had little-to-no impact on the political-social-etc landscape.