Few things:
1. Demos are just that, they are taken from the real game, but can be generally unpolished and are definitely unfinished. In fact any demos (from MS/Sony) could be a few weeks to a few months old. Working on demos for games is quite painful, so i can understand some demos having people standing with them while they play the games as EG pointed out. So much can go wrong with them if users go off the beaten track.
2. Some games are 4/5 months out. If the games are complete and all thats required is polish, then thats a hell of a lot of time to get the games into a better shape, as well as improve overall performance.
3. There is definitely a case for graphics over performance. If we take COD for example, they go for 60FPS, but it looks like crap. This is the choice you make, and in fact the choice is harder at the launch of a console, because you haven't necessarily improved your engines enough to try and do both. I've never had a problem with 30FPs on infamous. I would accept stable 30 and those graphics.
4. Picking Infamous/Driveclub as examples where there is pop-in/texture issues, these games are not due till next year, that is a very long time. The infamous gameplay video that was released, looks truly awesome and was definitely the best looking game of E3.
Making an indie game : Dead of Day!
