Ever heard the term esoteric or auteur?
If you want gameplay try some other game. You are asking David Lynch to become Christopher Nolan. People are fan of Kojima not regardless of the things you described but exactly because of those reasons.

In fact I'm one of the people who though gameplay was dragging down the experience and went to YouTube for the codec conversations and hours worth cutscenes.

Not everything needs to fit your neat little packaged product. I recommend you play https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginner's_Guide
Which is a perfect 10 game for me. It's a 90min walking simulator about a person narrating and guiding the player through esoterically designed video game levels. It's from the guy behind The Stanley Parable.

All your Memes and and referenced articles made me love and get hyped about Death Stranding even more. Your post is practically promotional material in my eyes.