As a new player to PFS but long time roleplayer, I think this is abit of a catch-22. People have extremely mixed expectations at how a PFS should be run, and trying to please everyone is extremely hard.
I am one of the type of players who really enjoy the boardgame element of play: As an avid boardgame player in general, PFS allows for extremely fun, complicated combat where spending time making characters can be almost as fun as playing them. The setting allows for creative use of skills and abilities that fall outside of standard boardgame gameplay, making for a fun and cooperative affair. Having climatic, strategic encounters means everyone must try to play their best, and just having cookie cutter builds and not considering combat is punished. If the combat was not challenging, and some strategy was not required, I would see no reason to play organized over free-form campaigns at all.
On the other hand I do also enjoy the roleplaying elements, and I feel they are there, just less explicitly. Good GMs can turn faction missions, interactions and travelling into far more than a couple of skill checks. They can play up the villains and the background, spice up the time between encounters, and so on.
The thing is that easing up on "forced" roleplaying is easier than including less or less challenging encounters, because then the individual group can scale the roleplaying up and down as they please. If a GM knows he is playing with optimizers/boardgamers he can scale back the roleplaying and rely on skill checks and quoting from the module, if he is playing with roleplayers you can easily fill out an extra hour in a scenario with fluff, roleplaying opportunities and creative interaction. It is far harder for a GM to try and force roleplaying over the heads of players who don't enjoy it: It falls flat and is unpleasant for both the player and the GM.
