I've got nothing against HD titles, it's the premium it costs to produce them that scares me. Why don't you actually try and contribute to the thread rather than trying to derail it?

EDIT: And if N fans are graphics whores in hiding then why aren't GC's best selling games renound for their amazing visuals?

I don't know where this notion of graphics and quality being mutually exclusive come from.

The current big dog is DX10, which makes current consoles look comically bad.

Crysis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPi0AhQgrDs

Far Cry 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU7lyFmgeFg

Is it just great graphics? No, it's complex calculation. Instead of "pre-broken" stuff you can calculate things breaking apart so it does it in a unique way every time. Obviously this doesn't only apply to leaves moving realistically when you brush against them, but this also means thousands of zombies on a screen at once, truly dynamic environments, and a lot of interesting tweaks. The Far Cry 2 demo explains a lot about what's possible as far as things like weather.

The thing about the last 10 or so years is that yes, for the most part it has been shader or lighting improvements: nickle and dime improvements. That basic criticism against gaming held water until very recently.

From a purely console perspective, I like the Wii for that reason--it's not going after graphics but instead a different kind of experience. The best computer in the world can give you the prettiest and most complex games in the world, but it doesn't guarantee pure FUN, and Nintendo has a monopoly on that.

As far as Nintendo, their visual glory comes not so much from graphics, but brilliant artistic design. I think anyone can agree with that. Photorealism is here already, I'm really curious what's going to be done with artistic design with that kind of power behind it.

Developers have X time and money.  Now, they can spend part of X on graphics, part of X on gameplay controls, part of X on sound, part of X on content...etc.  The less developers have to spend on graphics, the more they can spend on all the other good stuff.

It's not a matter of not having good stuff now so much as having more good stuff later.

Art need not immitate life to be beautiful. Life-like art must accurately immitate life to be beautiful.

I would rather pay $10 for a caricature of me in a go cart than $50 for a lifelike picture of just my face.

Basically, I prefer Nintendo's art wich is beautiful over the art from others that tries to be realistic but is drab and not accurate of reality.

 But then I've played games like Ratchet and Clank and Uncharted, where the worlds are vibrantly colored, extremely detailed, lush and full of splendor without capturing that photo realistic sense, Uncharted uses so great colors and features some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen in a game whlie retaining a very Naughty Dog style of character. And like I said the worlds in ratchet are just so expansive, you land on a planet and you can feel and see how it's an entirely new world. Hell Ratchet's been hailed as many as the closest thing to a playable pixar movie lol. And I kid you not when the game went from its cinematic down to its city scope, I kinda stood around waiting for the CG to end realizing it was the actual game waiting for me XD 

I don't think I'm understanding your point, why not give a bit less of X to graphics/presentation and more to the other things you've mentioned above?