Yes we know that both the GC and PS2 used low resolution framebuffers but it's pretty clear that bump mapping has it's issues when coupled with low resolution normal maps which in turn can cause even more pixelation artifacts than a low resolution framebuffer ... 

7th generation ended up as a close competitive generation selling over 270 million consoles with 3 consoles selling over 80+ million consoles between 2005 to present day.
Wii had the least power of the 7th generation consoles and opened up a commanding lead during its first 3 years selling 60+ million but struggled to sell another 35 to 40 million to crawl its way towards 100 million over the next 5 years. PS3 and X360 have both sold over 80+ million console systems.

8th generation: PS4 has over a 4 million lead over Wii U that launched a year ahead of the PS4. PS4 has sold around 6 million more than the XBox One that was released only two weeks after the PS4. PS4 is the strongest console system in terms of its graphics and processing power. 8th generation looks more than likely a repeat of the 5th and 6th generations when PS1 and PS2 sold 65% to 75% market share respectively.

The vast majority of Rogue Squadron's bumpmaps were of sufficient quality to deliver a sense of depth and realism to surfaces that you just didn't get in PS2 games.

"Vast majority" is an overstatement, no ? Even with bump mapping enabled, it still doesn't frequently net the desired effects of a bumpy surface and instead looks like a texture with modified gradients still giving the impression of a flat surface. The use of bump mapping in Rogue Squadron just isn't very seamless compared to a lot of the modern game's bump mapping or this ... 

Why are we comparing it to modern games at all? These are not modern consoles. There's no point holding them up to the standards of systems two generations newer.

My point isn't about comparing the bump mapping of Rogue Squadron to modern games. My point is that the effect achieved is frequently FLAWED ...

Yeah, these $399 consoles are weak sauce... we need $599 consoles again, dammit!

Apparently nobody learned anything from the last generation...

Not frequently. It's rare in the Rogue games that it doesn't achieve the desired effect.

Meanwhile, on PS2, texures are flat and blurrier.

That's the thing though ... These aren't rare corruptions if we go by the posted videos. If anything bump mapping is rare in Rogue Squadron as it's selectively applied. 

Sure the textures are of a lower resolution on the PS2 but it compensates that with more detailed polygon meshes ... 

Hmm lets see when the PS2 Gamecube and Xbox came out they were game changers when the 360 came out i remember playing a racing game and being like wow this looks real then everyone started pushing realism killing platform games when online play became mandatory on 360 and PS3 once Wii started failing everyone started making first person shooters. Now the PS4 and XB1 may be underpowered compared to the leaps other systems made think this its still a good investment now that it resembles pc architecture games should come pouring in it should stop the differences in how games look on XB1 and PS4 Destiny looks exactly the same between the two. And yes Platform games are coming back Banjo Kazooee, Knack, Little Big Planet. Plus cloud gaming and storage ability to record gameplay and stream these systems are game changers just wait