That's some of the worst reasoning ever. The PS2 ranks above the 360 by any reasonable standard.

I only had 10 options at the poll so I mostly stuck with IGN's list changing Dreamcast for Magnovox

Sorry...

First, it's the console that got me interested in home gaming.  I was an avid arcade gamer since I first played Pac Man in 1980, but after an extensive hands-on with the Atari 2600, I had no faith in home consoles being able to replicate what drew me to arcades.  Later when I actually played Super Mario Bros in an arcade unit - and later realized that it was the exact same experience on the NES - I was sold.

My mother and I made a trip to Albuquerque (this is when I lived in NM) just to buy an NES, and I had just seen the latest commercial for The Legend of Zelda, so we went to a Walmart to buy it.  I wanted the NES that came with SMB but they were out of that SKU at that particular store, but when I asked about Zelda, the salesman's eyes lit up.  There was an NES hooked to a small TV there in the electronics section and he actually opened up a copy of Zelda and let me play it.  This was the first time I had ever held the controller and played an NES.  As he explained the details of the game and showed me the full color booklet, the maps, etc, I just stood there in awe and amazement.  My mom looked at me and said, "I don't think you're going to have the patience for a game like this."  Little did she know...

So I actually had my copy of Zelda before the system itself - which I did get with Mario that same night - and before we went back home the next day, my mom let me pick out two more games, of which I chose Ice Climber and Ghosts 'n Goblins (I liked it in the arcade).  Those were the only games I had for a few months until later for Xmas when I got Metroid and Kid Icarus.

No console has ever had the impression on me that the NES did.  It established the 3rd party business model and it single-handedly brought back the home video game market after the big crash of '83... and it firmly established home gaming as a permanent form of entertainment.  So many genres were present on the console:  platformers, racers, light gun shooters, puzzlers, brawlers, action games, adventure games, sports, RPGs... even the "family participation genre" with games like Anticipation.  And it was easily the most dominant console that ever was and ever will be:  Over 90% market share over the Sega Master System and Atari 7800.  Even the PS2 can't claim to have had competitors first party games brought to their console like the NES did, which actually housed Sega games like Shinobi and Afterburner thanks to a company called Tengen.

I don't ever expect to be wowed by another console like I was with the NES ever again.  If I am, I'll consider myself very lucky that I was able to experience that feeling twice.

There are plenty of other consoles that marked a major leap, like the entirity of the sixth generation consoles over fifth generation technology. While in the latter half of the '90s most games were displayed at 320x240 resolutions, Dreamcast and others upped it to 640x480 as the new standard.

This makes your line of reasoning basically equal to "the 360 did the same thing as many consoles before it, therefore the 360 is greater than these consoles".