Man oh man.. when did we become so stuck up about genre labels for games? I've been hearing/reading more "thats not an x, its more like a y because z is what a x should be like." Give it a break people, genre descriptions are an indicator of what the game is like, not a 100% description of the elements and gameplay involved. I'd rather we use the "z"-clone but with ''xy" formula to describe games at this point. It's probably the more common method of introducing games to your friends anyways.
And an RPG.. a role-playing game? When in the world did that term become so limiting to people? Role playing is strictly that.. being/playing someone else. If it just so happens that a game is doing the traditional level based character progression.. or one is a sandbox and another isn't.. that's all good.
Let's establish some more descriptors to the genre tag so that we can keep people from saying things like "that's not an mmorpg, that's not like WoW". It hurts my brain.