I think you will find better graphical games on ds for a few reasons

1. 480x240 or whatever screen is compared to huge tv's. the same game on the ds will look better than it on a huge tv.
2. also its easier to get away with on handhelds shorter games.  people don't get as pissed having on a few hour handheld game versus only feew hour console game.  thus with thinking more time spent on graphics means shorter game.  thus if shorter games on handhelds they should have better graphics in same thinking.  Though not always true.  may be they just slack off and make a short game
3. dev's excited about 3D.  i don't care who you are, working on something advanced technology wise is everyones dream.  No developer grows up and wants to make and 8 bit game.  They want their vision to be the next crysis (in terms of graphics) the next oblivion (in terms of world), the next gta4 (in terms of oscar winning story, lol jk).  Saying that, even though DS isn't the graphics king, ps3/360/ngp all beat it.  It has the 3D factor where they will still be excited.  People confuse why people don't develop on the wii.  It isn't because its nintendo and casual or can't compete with nintendo games.  Its because these developers don't want to develop games on essentiall last gen grahics.  they want to make their games look amazing, so you go WOW

And so many of the smaller developers fail to WOW or make the big bucks on the HD twins. Just look at what Atlus, Nippon Ichi, tri-Crescendo, Retro, and Vanillaware have done with limited hardware capabilities and smaller budgets. A lot of devs need to realize that art style will trump just about any graphical achievement.

I did not claim the latter bolded comment. You earlier claimed the former bolded comment, and that was what I was disputing. Games that push the GC, as with many systems, did it in different ways. I'm just stating that SFA did its own thing at the cost of other things, same as Rebel Strike, RE4, and Twilight Princess. None overall tops the other. They push the system in their own ways.

SFA had loads of extensive effects at the cost of polygon count and texturing.

Rogue Squadron II and III pushed polygons with full effects, at the cost of no effect being really high, and with texturing that is really low, almost at sandbox game level.

RE4 had moderatly high polygon count, probably the best overall texturing and models on the GC, at the cost of several effects, athough it did have a few nice ones.

Twilight Princess matched RE4 in texturing, but traded a lower polygon count for even better effects.

Also the former two are 60fps, but with low textures, and the latter two are 30fps, but with great textures.

you might need to double check star wars rebel strike there, it has the most impressive lighting on the console, and extensive bump mapping of any gc game, and the texture resolution is definitely above average, it had self shadowing, the only other game I can think of that got that out of the TEV is Overlord Dark Legend (actually one of the most technically impressive wii games)

Okay on lighting, but there were other effects that were relatively weak or non-existant. That is NOT a put-down for the game. What it did push had to make room somehow. As for extensive bump mapping, sure it had it, but it doesn't look as, well, bumpy as on RE4 or Twilight Princess. Again, that is NOT a put-down, just noting one went for quantity, and the others went for quality.

Finally, textures were above average on RE4 and TP as well, plus character models on the RS games weren't as detailed, even though they had the polygons and full effects. Again, that is NOT a put-down. Those games used quantity over quality.

This isn't a pissing contest I'm trying to make any game win at. I'm pointing out that NONE will, because games DO NOT USE ANY ONE GAME SYSTEM IN THE SAME WAY.

Texture EnVironment unit.  It's basically the GC and Wii equivelant of Direct3D.  Direct3D has the advantage of being well understood by the development community and the shaders can be programmed to operate as needed by the developer.  The TEV is a fixed function pipeline in that all effects are locked in their application and few development studios have really taken the time to learn how capable the unit truly is.   Some developers barely even touch it and don't use any graphical shaders at all.   It's why you see games of tremedous graphical difference on GC and Wii between certain developers.

It also shows how ignorant many are of what the systems could do by how surprised the people who worked on RE5 were at what Darkside Chronicles could do. This despite RE4 showing what the GC could do.

I should add, just in case some claim this is part of "alienating" developers, that it's also developer willingness to use them, as they were certainly willing to work with the irregular programming of the PS2 and PS3. And those were at least as hard, and the latter even more expensive, but those somehow didn't alienate developers.

But back on topic it's also good that the 3DS is some kind of middle ground, as it means those working on it will be tricked into knowing how to use the Wii to some extent.

Here.