Ah, the whimsical thaumaturge - ever bringing gentleness, common sense and gracious good humour to heated debates.

I guess gameplay means different things to different people, or in different contexts. The definition of 'Gameplay' in a FPS may be very different from 'gameplay' in a RPG. For me, as a lover of strategy games, 'gameplay' lies in how well balanced a game is - does it present you with decisions involving complex weighing of different factors, some of which may be unknown or unvalued? In my world, eye candy isn't important to good gameplay - chess, Santa Paravia or Civ 2 all have great gameplay.

Or I guess gameplay is like common sense: everyone knows it when they see it, even if no-one can define it.