Todd Howard says Bethesda is focused on finding ways to increase its output
(www.videogameschronicle.com)
Long development time per game is still a problem. It means they're less reactive to things in the industry like new innovations or what players actually want, it means that the people who finish a project are not the ones who started it, and it means that devs get burnt out working on fewer projects by the ends of their careers with less to show for it. I'm of the opinion that dev times need to work their way back to 3 years or so. Morrowind to Oblivion to Fallout 3 to Skyrim was such a better pace compared to what Bethesda put out since.