I read this at first as adventures suck, but then got my bearings a bit. On the whole, yes I'd agree with you. There are times when a delve can be a fun diversion from a long campaign. I think that I'd use something like Goodman Games Dugeon Crawl Classics for that. I personally use Swords and Wizardry (an OSR "Retroclone" of original D&D). I usually DM for my son and his friends (8 boys 12-14). I've been surprised at their desire for goal setting and character building. Story is very important, not just being a bunch of murder hobos. For instance, they fought a pack of wild dogs and won (barely) at first level. It was a fight that they will never forget and each one of them now wears a dog tooth necklace as part of the story. They have goals more oriented around creating a story around their characters and are quite fond of talking amongst themselves for hours about their goals. One of the things I found immensely ammusing was that when they first started gaming, they all wanted to get jobs in the local town to generate a stable income that would help finance their non-adventuring affairs. They all wanted to buy or build houses. It was rather like the old cartoon in the AD&D DMs guide for Papers and Paychecks!
One thing I found interesting about roleplayers I've had the pleasure of knowing is that a lot of the people who come from video games and the like are very into high-octane swords and sorcery number crunching (and this is what most video games offer, in lieu of significant narrative development), while a lot of the people who don't do more of that storytelling as a focus.
When I was working on the unofficial supplement I made (well, left unfinished, but you know how it goes) for Degenesis, I was starting work on a town-building element, and it was probably the most well-received part of the whole supplement.