Progressbaritis: Inflamation of the Progress Bar

I don't know what it is about a little bar that fills up as numbers are poured into it... but I absolutely love that thing. I bought my friend Borderlands, a game that lives and dies by the progress bar. Perhaps you call it the XP bar, rank bar, or leveling-up bar. No matter what you call it, for some reason it has a strangle like hold over gamers (and probably nongamers as well). We like progress. Not that games don't have progress, but we like having progress for everything we do, not just story centric events. Video games are generally built around a number of ideas. You have the story (easy to get progress), mechanics (dealing out complication bit by bit), and finally character progression (often difficult to do well when it comes to emotion and story, but easy when using a progress bar). Okay, so the list should be longer, but those stick out to me right now.

So, the progression bar is a blade with two sides. First, it's awesome. Like I said, the progress bar is an easy and addictive way to see your character grow. New skills, abilities, higher life bars and magic bars all add to the notion that your character has done something worth while in the game world.
- Hey! I used this sword to kill a bunch of mad pandas. In real life, by the end of all that panda killing... I would be pretty great at it. Thanks progress bar for reflecting that in a game!

However, the progress bar is a bit of a crutch. Ask someone who plays a lot of RPGs... or a person who has ever played an RPG. The story can range from awful to great, but that doesn't make up for the repetitive gameplay. The progression bar does. Yet, I would like to periodically see meaningful changes and progression in a character. Maybe after all that panda killing my character is really skilled at the task, but I'd rather see a different change in my character than being able to put a skill point into "panda murdering." Maybe he simply holds that sword with a little more confidence. Maybe an NPC (non-player character) comments on my recent accomplishment. I think those ideas have all been tried... and failed as far as I'm concerned. I still want something more. The progress bar is great, but let's see a bit more.