It's certainly the most ambitious. I've always wondered what her vision would have been for King's Quest 9. My guess it probably would have built up many of the features of KQ8, but been even more polished.
And the technology would have caught up to her level of ambition. Many of the ideas that had to be cut, were cut because there were limitations to the technology at the time, that prevented her from creating certain aspects. Such as physics system for water currents. It would have taken another year to basically create that technology from scratch.
Its an interesting bit of trivia though from the first game in the series there were puzzle ideas Roberta had for the games, but she couldn't fit them all into a single game. So for example several of the ideas cut from KQ1 were moved into KQ2. Its possible this would have been the situation with KQ8. If she had made KQ9, maybe many of the ideas that were cut would have been incorporated into KQ9 somehow.
Oh, and come to think of it, MOE actually reincorporates some of the arcade abilities like the ability to "jump" that originally existed back in King's Quest 1 
. Only thing it lacked was the ability to swim which was last seen back in KQ4.
Me too. I wish we could see a KQ9 similar to KQ8. I really don't mind the action, so long as there is as much exploration and puzzles. The action, for me, actually makes things more interesting. I'd say the world of KQ8 is about as immersive and magical as KQ5's but in a different way. KQ6, story-wise, is a great game, but the Green Isles aren't very interesting and aren't that original--they're basically patisches of very common lands in fantasy, and borrows in it's cosmology heavily from pretty common mythology.
A lot of the stuff in KQ5, as in KQ8, are original, and the mythological referrences are pretty obscure. There's something oddly similar about them--Perhaps it's that they were both ambitious.
I think had Roberta stuck around, KQ9 could've been the new KQ6. What I mean is--KQ5 introduced some great ideas and radical new game mechanics; KQ6 built on the story and made it into an epic. A KQ9 done in the KQ8 style but building upon it, perhaps this time with Roberta working with a writer versed in sword and sorcery stories or even just by herself, could've been great.
I'd support an action/adventure KQ9, even if done by Activision, as long as it kept true to the uniqueness and mythology and mysteriousness of KQ8. No matter what else people say, you can't easily say that KQ8 is bland, especially in terms of the world it takes place in.
So yeah, action/adventure should be the future of the series.
