Some of the areas are really quite well written. Enough so that I explore them simply to explore them.
I'm not in there to familiarize myself with the area, I'm not in there to look for preps, I'm not in there to find shinies.
I'm there simply to enjoy the area.

I'll sit in a room reading the descriptions, look at random stuff, talk to people (sayto command does a lot in a few areas, especially if you don't do things like attack residents), and generally just take my sweet time wandering around. It probably isn't the most efficient way to explore, I remember when I explored with a full set of aliases that would do everything for me (look in all directions, examine stuff, highlight suspicous words, etc etc). That was a chore.
But what I'm doing now is actually fun. I might not get much done in an hour or two that I spend doing this, but I'm having fun doing it, and that's what's important to me.

You can approach RPing the same way, sure not everyone is receptive to just sitting down and talking to you, but enough people want to talk about their characters and who they are, that it's not that hard to sit down with someone and discuss their philosophies with them. And it puts a face on that random xxxx warrior/ranger/tranny that up until then, you only identified as lvl 36 neutral nexus wannabe tranny.

It's a big playground, there's a lot of different ways to have fun.