Why go from black & white to colour? From still pictures to moving pictures. From 2D films to 3D films? Why did the great point and click games and text based adventure games die out?
Look, of course not all games need be 3D, flashy, etc. but for games (and films) there is a massive desire for immersion and the creation of compelling settings... and at the end of the day a 3D view is always going to trump a 2D view in that respect. Take something like Oblivion - it's got flaws, but for the feeling of creeping down into some long abandoned ruin its 3D view and graphics excel anything the best 2D view or text can manage (and I say that as someone who loved the old text adventures and 2D games).
As for why so many? Consumer market I'm afraid. Still, hopefully all the virtual markets for Wii, PS3 and 360 will give such games a better chance to be made and succed.
For example for last 2 weeks I've mainly been playing Pixel Jucie Monsters (tough little game at least for me) trying to beat its tougher levels and its a simple 2.5D game with nice but hardly fancy graphics from PSN.
Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...
