The notion that Japanese designers are superior to western developers is stupid. Both have developers that are crap/amazing and both have widely emotional artistic games/derivative boring talentless games. Early western RPG's had a HUGE influence on jprgs (games like ultima) I mean most of the remaining ultima online players are from japan.
Why do western games not appeal? Different countries like different genres and the Japanese have always been very good at accommodating their own tastes. Many of the big genres in the west simply haven't hit the big time there yet but that doesn't mean they wont. Look at the 360 its best selling games are firly jrpg and then secondly western rpg's. Yes the 360 is insignificant in Japan but games like oblivion fallout and fable and doing a lot better then people thought they would. Valve for example made a half-life 2 arcade game for Japan to try and create interest in FPS's over there. Its a very interesting strategy as they're going through the arcades and trying to create interest that way.
@soriku black and grey can be extremely artistic, look at citizen kane for example. Or Mad World (yes its a japanese game) if I must mention a game. The predominant art style in the west may have a limited colour pallete compared to the more anime based flavour of Japanese games but it doesn't really make it any more or less artistic just different. Its all about how you apply said colour pallete. Personal taste is not the most valid form of opinion when discussing things.
