So, as is literally always the case with these things, you are confusing the goal here.
I don't want to make a game that does the things I want a game to do.
I want to PLAY a game that does the things I want a game to do.
Problem is - and I here speak from experience - sometimes the only way to get adjacent to the game you want to play in is to a) design it and then b) run it.
At least that way you get to watch other people play it.
I tried. I'm not going to spend six months of my life on a heartbreaker that won't ever be seen by 99.99999% of the gaming community
Gotta say, if you can design a fully-fleshed-out system from the ground up in only six months, that's pretty good.
Is that, maybe possibly perhaps, because people aren't super interested in playing utterly unremarkable, do-nothing commoners? That when they hear the idea of fantasy adventure, they'd much rather be Aragorn than Nameless Rohan Citizen #37?
Instead of playing Eowyn* right out the gate (which sure seems like what some here want), I want to play Rohan Citizen #37 through the journey that ultimately leads to her becoming Eowyn. Further, I know full well the odds of her surviving that journey aren't great; and that I might have to restart the journey several (or even a lot of) times before getting to finish it.
Once she gets to the point of being Eowyn, the journey's pretty much done; and while I could keep playing her as Eoywn for a while, it's probably time to start over with Shire Hobbit #23 and play through his journey to becoming Bilbo*.
* - or equivalent, as obviously there's only one Eowyn and one Bilbo.
We tell stories about people who are interesting to focus upon. Farmboys whose true fathers are evil wizards leading the armies of the Empire. Young women whose inheritance is guarding the barrier between life and death. Mages marked by the evil of the dark wizard who slew their parents. Heirs to forgotten crowns and constructs yearning for purpose built by mad geniuses. Comfortable landed gentry who feel the call to madcap adventure...or to carry a burden greater than any other.
And sometimes all that extra background drama and extra-ordinariness just gets tiresome.
D&D bills itself as high fantasy high adventure. Has since at least 2e, probably earlier. Not really sure what you expected people would think they'd be getting. Planescape was driven, in part, by making a setting that melded high and low together, with the grit and grime of Sigil and the weirdness and power of the planes all in one package.
Truth be told, I've never played Planescape nor looked very much into it.
