to understand why freeplay is boring we have to think about how gameplay benefits from having a "plot" and scripted events
>player gets a quest or informal incentive to visit a location (loot/faction progress/weird shit happening)
>to get from A to B player needs to choose an optimal for his circumstances route (short with annoying obstacles, long and time-wasting but safe-ish)
>upon reaching the location he might run into an encounter and spend some time trying to figure out where the objective is/how to access the next area
>scenario either ends after the goal is complete or keeps things happening as the player tries to escape with loot and/or hand in the quest
freeplay on the other hand simply makes you beeline from one area to another doing very obvious menial fetch/kill quests with very obvious dangers and rewards
even with A-life nothing out of the ordinary like a random hostile faction raid on your location will happen
you're just going in and out of the same ruined factory, looting the same shit til overburdened, crawling to the nearest merchant trying to upgrade your rusty AK into a wunderwaffe that can destroy c-con from cordon in one shot