As you run by items, should they just automatically get picked up and sold? Or just enter 1 giant spreadsheet so you can use or access the value of anything you’ve been near? Should you even be able to pick up a plate or should only core items be actual items like old school games? I’d argue the player is deciding what is and is not worth their real life time, else again, it’s not a game, it’s a spreadsheet. Granted, there’s a fine line to walk here between what is a game, what strategic decisions there should be, and how tedious should things be. It’s more complex than what you’re considering, and it’s a very slippery slope that ends in spreadsheets, math, automation, and whether or not anything is worth playing at all, or is the story the only important part and the rest is just wasting time… So perhaps no games, just books.
It makes more sense if your character also has a lifetime time limit or cannot return to an area visited, else if you can, you’re right, no point in gating it as a time sink.
Games need very thoughtful trade-off and strategy management. Diablo for instance had a very beloved or maligned inventory mechanic playing tetris, which was set aside for the same reasons you talk about.
It matters a lot more if you cannot just whip out 80 potions and swap to optimize gear mid battle… If you had to make opportunity cost choices in games it would matter.
Great games balance all this, and you get more casual games the fewer choices and consequences there are, until they technically aren’t games anymore and just become number go up simulators.