Eagle,
good RPG is like good Adventure, but bigger.
Genie's Curse,
Betrayal in Krondor,
Heimdall,
Realms of Arkania or
Starflight, for example, are much more than dungeon romps like Eye of the Beholder or Dungeon Master. RPGs are... shapeshifters. They could be anything from dating sim to hardcore strategy. Other genres have a problems with it, if they tried to be something else
without RPG.
Strategies wasn't super-popular all 2000s (when I can watch it), and I can guess that it was the same state before too. It need too much attention and have too many restrictions. And when scope widens (like in 4x games), game immediately stumbles in bad AI issues. I seen it many times. For example, famous Alpha Centauri practically unplayable on settings bigger than "big" maps. I can push margins much more, but in result computer lose track of all this land and miserably failed. Ugh.
And in last years there wasn't any exceptional and wide-known turn-based strategy at all. Most of it either too casual (as Civilizations or HoMM), or too obscure (as most Paradox games). And RTS actually not "strategies" at all in core. It's more like "tactical management simulator". So no wonder that people do not like strategies too much - they rarely sees _good_ strategies.