On the frame-rate aspect I think Nintendo have been more on the 60fps route all along. Mario Kart Double Dash having 60fps 4 player split screen, Starfox Adventures, Metroid Prime, etc all having a rock solid frame rate.
Hell they even sacrificed visuals in F-Zero X to hit 60fps.
On the resolution front I agree entirely, I am still amazed to this date, that the Wii didn't get a HD upgrade at some point in it's life, even if all it did was enable Wii games to run in HD/upscale older Wii titles.
I was sold on 60fps by SEGA with Dreamcast software. I didn't know it was 60fps vs 30fps, I stumbled across it accidentally when I couldn't put my finger on why F355 Challenge and Tokyo Highway Challenge etc ran so much smoother and handled much more tightly than Metropolis Street Racer.
Project Gotham (What Microsoft renamed the franchise when they paid for Bizarre to make an Xbox launch title) being 60fps was a dream come true for me, I was gutted when it dropped back to 30fps for the sequels.
It's also clear that Japanese game developers in particular traditionally saw 60fps as the goal. You only need to look at the early 3D arcade games. They may have had blocky polygons and low resolution textures (if they had any textures at all) but they still always ran at 60fps. For me this means the likes of Virtua Racing and Daytona USA still look good in a retro artistic kind of way to date, despite most PS1/N64 games which generally ran sub 30fps looking dreadful.
Btw this isn't a rant, more me just going wildly off topic over frame rates personally :)
RIP Dad 25/11/51 - 13/12/13. You will be missed but never forgotten.
