The The Digital Antiquarian is an excellent and ongoing history into computer entertainment, with quite a bias towards adventure games. In AGT though, the author makes a compelling argument in favour of text adventures...

"In a ludic world obsessed with high-concept, world-saving, galaxy-spanning plots, text adventures can provide a window into the more modest but — for me, anyway — far more interesting lives of real people."

Small lives (and places) could indeed be easier to capture and bring to life in a text adventure compared to any of the other graphics-rich gaming genres around today.

(Note I'm not saying they could be better - just easier to achieve. Same as it's easier for one person to write a novel than make a movie.)