I admit I'm impressed.  Do you have a video with actual gameplay for that stage?

sadly no, but im sure you could find one soon ^.^. I just saw it myself hehe :)

Wops found one! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GRkWbFAIr4

Strange what a difference tracks can make.  It almost looks like a completely different game and I'm not just talking about the video resolutions, it's like completely different teams worked on parts of it.

It's the difference between the video quality of the video you brought up,and that one.

I think the game looks visually pretty good.  Although, not the coming of the deity to rescue all of us from an eternal life of unrealistic visuals, but still good.  Try not to get caught up in people's excitement over the game and the game itself.  Same thing happened with many other games on PS3 and well really on all the systems.  The high quality, big budget games are going to look good on the systems and really that's probably as far as anyone should go with the commentary on them. 

Is this real time damage control?

just came across another one with low resolution on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn4hyW0R-NA

This sh!t is awesome. :)

looks fine to me. Maybe some people over exaggerated the graphics but that doesn't change the fact that it is still the most realisitc looking game to date.

PIctures in the OP are from Photo Mode, wich greatly improve graphics of the cars.