"Witty banter"

So i've recently completed HL2 EP2 tis great and all, real whizz bang etc But why is it all of the Half-Life games seem to have me moving from one place to another powering stuff up or waiting for lifts? I know theres smatterings of pretty decent plot and some pretty enjoyable set pieces but jeez another lift?!
You could argue this is valves way of keeping the games narrative conventions in check 'the lift won't work until you find the powersource, now bugger off over there and find it' but im getting pretty tired of it, it harks beack to the original Doom's coloured keycard hunt and if this is a reflection of FPS games in general its pretty worrying from a gameplay POV, I can see massive flaws in this argument already but its late and i wanted to get this damn lift hate off my chest