I'd posit that those posts are saying that 4e offers little else outside of tactical minis combat (a really light skill system, for example).
I think this relates back to [MENTION=54877]Crazy Jerome[/MENTION]'s comments about illusionism upthread.
It seems to me that some people think that there is more "depth" or "weightiness" in a game which has intricate build rules that very highly regulate whether a PC has a +6 or a+8 bonus next to their intricately distinguished skill descriptors, even though the gamet has no action resolution mechanics for those skills, other than "achieve a certain number of successes as specified by the GM, against a range of DCs specified by the GM."
I appreciate the importance of colour in PC build - that is a big part of the attraction of the PC build rules in a game like Rolemaster. But I think action resolution rules are pretty important as well - otherwise that colour is just rough-and-ready guidelines for GM-arbitrated free-forming.
When it comes to social interaction, 4e relies more heavily on the GM and players, rather than the build mechanics, to provide the colour (although a lot of colour options are spelled out in race and class descriptions, sidebars in the "power" books, etc), but provides much more robust action resolution techniques, than 3E does.
In that respect it is more like a "modern" RPG such as HeroWars/Quest than a "traditional" RPG like RQ or RM or HERO.
My own impression is that many of those who say that 4e is not an RPG are not familiar with the games that are obvious influences upon its design.
I'm not sure there can be, without to some considerable extent taking RP control of the PCs away from the players and handing it to the dice...ditto for NPCs and the DM. I don't think that'll fly very far.
It can also be argued that in social conflict there is no such thing as precise victory conditions.
There are a lot of good working models out there.
In 4e combat victory conditions are described in abstract mechanical terms - reduce the enemy from N to 0 hp. (There are other alternatives, like surrender, but 0 hp is the default.)
What 0 hp means in the game - dead, or disabled in some other fashion - is left a bit more flexible.
In 4e social victory conditions are also described in abstract mechanical terms - achieve N successes before 3 failures. What N successes means in the game is left flexible - the players and GM are expected to outline the stakes of the conflict at the start of the interaction (as per the skill challenge rules in the DMG) but these stakes can evolve over the course of resolution (and are likely too, in a high-complexity skill challenge).
This sort of resolution no more takes control away from the player than does the combat rules that says "If you're at 0 hp you can't narrate your guy as running around all over the place smiting his enemies." That is, it establishes parameters within the fiction, within the scope of which the players is free to narrate what his/her PC is doing.
