You make a good point, but, only if you do not consider that there are too many assumptions in that logic.
Well, at least with Mass Effect, based on how the 360 version works, I think even the doubters have to admit that the game was made for 16:9.
I agree that UE3 games being vert-/+ is a result of the way the UE3 engine does things by default. The question is was the FOV in these games chosen at 16:9 or 4:3.
Also with 1st Person Shooters, like Bioshit, it is very clear how the "intended" FOV for WS users is too narrow and causes nausia to some level to too many users, when the 4:3 FOV works fine due to the different FOV and this only because the WS fov is too small AND zoomed in (you see less of the gun/hand for example).
Hey, I totally agree with you that Bioshock's FOV is much too narrow for widescreen PC users. It was a bad choice on their part - but that doesn't mean it wasn't their choice. On consoles where you typically sit much further away from the screen it's not such an issue - so it could just be lazy a holdover from console development.
Developers make bad choices all the time. Poor interfaces, annoying gameplay elements, etc. They can choose bad FOVs too. Just because they made a bad choice for an FOV at 16:9 doesn't mean they didn't actually choose that FOV at 16:9.
However, once you start bringing personal preference into it it get's tricky to have standards. I mean you can look at a game that is hor+, and still claim that the game would be better with an even larger FOV, because, for example, the game is based on a 75° FOV at 4:3 instead of a 90° FOV. Do we penalize them because we still think the FOV is too small even though it's hor+? If seeing more is better why, in our detailed reports, do we recommend people set their widescreen FOV based on whatever the 4:3 FOV is, instead of just telling them to set the largest FOV possible that doesn't have too much distortion?
Again I think we're all agree that vert-/+, is not an ideal solution. The only thing that we want people to consider is that if a game was designed at 16:9, then it's not a matter of widescreen users being "gyped", it's really non-widescreens seeing more than intended.