I recently changed my view on Fallout 3 after playing it, now it still has a long way from being a true sequel, but its changed in a way that ensures the survival of the series, and a growth in state of RPG games.
 
Fallout 1&2: The first fallout is considered the truest fallout, and is most peoples favorite, i hated it at first glance, and thought it was fucked up that all the lines werent recorded  with Voice Overs, i was used to adventure games at the time. After playing other RPG's i gave Fallout 2 a chance, and discovered one of the best RPG's ever made.
Upon finisning fallout 2, i revised my thoughts on the first game and played it as well, its great though it doesnt hold as high a place in my heart as Fallout 2.

Why are they better RPG's: First off all the can be completed without firing a gun, with the right skills and perks, you can talk, sneak or run from any encounter. The game changed what you would say depending on your intelligense score, and if it was low enough, it would be near impossible to complete the game because not everyone could understand what you were saying or refused to talk to you.
 
Choosing skills and tag skills are different in the first two. A tag skill was special it raised your skill at start, and adding a skill point to it would raise it accordingly. Non tag skills were raised one point for every 2 spent. so training in something you werent good at was harder. But it meant you would have to play again to take different choices and paths.
 
Both games essentially had short main campaigns and rewarded exploring. They gave (especially the first one) a great glimpse of the desperation people are in.

Fallout 3: Fallout 3 gets alot of things right and a lot of things wrong, but whats wrong can be fixed and whats right doesnt have to. Bethesda has come a long way with designing RPG's, the way fallout 3 works is leagues better than Oblivion. the way you talk to people and they talk to you, and theres actually a story worth the while in it.

Combat, the combat in fallout 3 is great, its fun,, while lots of people argue that you shouldnt have twitch gaming in an RPG, i dont mind it, aslong as my skills affects it somewhat, and VATS is a great way to implement some of the turnbased fun.

Combat in the first 2 games werent always fun, and hardly anymore realistic than twitch gaming, as you would take turns shooting at eachother.

In short for Bethesda.

Let talking get you further, with everyone in the game.
Let me hit people's eyes and groin with VATS (let me target places with melee weapons)
A bit more RPG into the skills.

All in all a great game..

if anyone actually bothered to read it, im sorry that its a messed up pile of bullshit, but after writting it all, i didnt feel like deleting it :P