I don't think D&D or Traveller were aimless at all. I do think most 90s era design was. L5R (before 5th edition), Shadowrun, Vampire, Witchcraft, Earthdawn, Cyberpunk, etc. People basically did a bunch of world building (and not even with an eye towards its suitability for gaming) and basically treating the game as an afterthought with many rules carried over from other games without consideration of it served their game well. No real instructions on how to structure play, character creation that did not establish purpose or why characters should give a damn about each other. No real thought put into reward cycles.
I get that a fair number of people don't really want a structured experience and actually prefer the sort of raw worldbuilding of older designs. But the sort of free verse world building is not really an intentional effort to create a game to a specific premise or vision.