Was reading some comments over my coffee this morning and ran into this:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3272197&cid=42090067
I never really thought about it before but Minecraft leads you in a fairly linear progression but it's so subtle you aren't aware of it, I think that's where the genius of it really lies.
Interesting thoughts anyway!
True when played in Survival mode. When played in Creative mode, as my little guy frequently does, it truly is a box of electronic legos.