Skyrim, for all its flaws, at least had hand crafted worlds with interesting things to see and do in them

Virtually 100% of main and faction story arcs are hand-generated content. I would go further and say Starfield used more distinct model-sets than Skyrim did.

For context, Skyrim's map was ALSO procedurally generated, but most (or all) of the content was built on top of it by hand. We have comparable amount of manually generated content in Starfield, and then tons of procedural content allowing for a larger overall world.

Starfield is approximately 100,000x larger than Skyrim. So yeah, a lot of it is going to be procedurally generated. But you follow a general path, and everything along that path is NOT.

So... no fugue there. Both have similar amounts of handmade content, but Skyrim has a lot of filler content, and that filler content is largely barrel worlds, something that works because planets tend to be barren.

What is there even to find?

Granny Valentine's singing in orbit Mrs. Kurtz school field trip Space pilgrims

Just a few random orbital encounters that I've found. Planet side there are plenty of structures to explore but no real reason to do it; the random loot system ensures you're as likely to find something exploring on your own as you are fulfilling a bounty contract. There is no special reward or motivation to exploring vs finding these structures via a mission.

What part of Diablo 4 is behind a microtransaction wall? Some skins?

I think it's "Most of the skins".

The problem with both games is they disrespect the player’s time by turning everything into a slog.

I can't speak for Diablo 4 on this, but that's not Starfield. Just like other Bethesda games, Starfield clearly gives feedback when you're leaving major storylines and running procedural content. Radiant Quests have mixed reception, but the number of radiant quests you actually need to complete any Bethesda game is in the single-digits.

If you stick to main-story and faction-mainline quests, you touch virtually nothing that wasn't hand-crafted for your pleasure. No slog. No grind. No nothing. And I find it pretty easy to differentiate between the handcrafted side-quests and the procedural side-quests. If you don't, just ignore the more obscure-seeming side quests anyway.

a boring 150+ hours of empty world with a total of 35 hours of interesting beats

Is this a personal self-discipline problem of yours? A game with 35 hours of great content is worth the price of a game like Starfield, and you can just NOT go out and play the "150+ hours of empty world" if you don't like it. While I haven't beaten Starfield yet (I like procedural content and spend a lot of time in it), that mainline content isn't gated behind doing procedural stuff. That stuff was added on top of the content you directly pay for.

For me, I love going system to system finding ships to pirate. I haven't really gotten into planetary exploration yet. Maybe I won't enjoy that as much, or maybe I will. If I don't enjoy it, I just won't do it and it won't detract from the game.

I dunno why you're getting downvoted, cause you're completely right. The microtransaction hell in Diablo is all for shit like horse armor. The game plays exactly the same whether or not you've spent an extra dime. With that being said, it is 100% bullshit to have any extra transactions, micro or not, in a $90 game.

Why can't we have both and the people who want to play each type of game enjoy what they like.

I personally haven't found SF or D4 to be a slog. D4 remained fun for me though the story and clearing the map which took me up to lv60 and then I put it down to pick up again later, SF is a long game but I haven't felt like I've had to grind or repeat content to keep up, everything I've done is a bespoke quest and that's given me enough experience and cash to level up what I want and buy a top level ship, etc

If you don't like long games you may well find those games a slog but then you have games like the new Assassin Creed focused at people who want shorter games.