"Supposedly you only have to do this once per gen however and then you reuse the code..."
Again, textures was just a hypothetical thing. What would count would be telling a system how to incorporate every texture in a level. So all those things apply that I mentioned, as well as the frame buffer, and how the non graphical parts of the games interact with them. No system does it the same way twice (counting APIs as a system in that context).
A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.
Plus, just for the hell of it: Kelly Brook at the 2008 BAFTAs