and in relation to the world through choices in his actions and conversation (dialogue).
There you go. Now it's choices through
actions in addition to dialogue. You just upped your feature count to 4 from 3. Fucking hypocrite. At least stay fucking consistent. Judging by your illiteracy, I can tell that you would probably shocked to death and back to learn about the amount of games accepted as RPGs which have dialogue without choices, with choices but without any consequences and both without any actions that affect the gameworld. It might be even safe to say that about 3/4 CRPGs play without any significant choice&consequences whatsoever.
Once again, I'm hesitant to go into definitions because of genre-crossing or the lack of distinctive features exclusive to RPGs (Stats? Strategy and tactical games. Inventory? Action, adventure and tactical games. Dialogue? Adventure games. etc.) There are certain games some of us call definitely an RPG while others piss at the idea and it shows that in such cases, clear-cut definitions simply aren't applicable.
For me, it's dialogue and non-dialogue choices and appropriate reactions above all else, above stats, above an inventory, which is most often opposed by the idea that it then becomes synonymous with adventures games, which is ridiculous because majority of adventure games are rail-roaded puzzle games focusing on story with few multi-paths here and there which is kind of equivalent of taking the other corridoor to enemy base in an action game. However, that's not a definite line where a game stops or starts being a CRPG for me. Every game needs to be considered on its own, without respect to textbook feature definitions. There is your answer.
That said, you really show why you deserve your title in every message you post. So tell me, what's next in your list of features, and while at it, why don't you tell us your favourite CRGPs as well as some recent games you consider to be CRPGs (Whether you like or not)?