There's nothing the current gen consoles can do that the next gen consoles cannot do. So why wait? New engines would still benefit from mpre powerful consoles. If anything, he just wanted time to try and redeem himself. 

Am I the only one who still gets amazed at the graphics when I play some PS1 and PS2 games?

You don't seem to get the difference. Technical wonderful things can look bad while very simple baked things can look good. That's what I tried to say. You are only judging by art and style, not by technology.

He doesn't say you should wait. He just said they are "far from tapped out". The text in the article "Carmack seems to feel that you can only really move on from a generation once you've full mastered the previous one." is pure speculation and doesn't reflect what Carmack said.

And really, he has nothing to prove for people like you and me - his work was and is still important for the whole industry. If you won't accept that, nobody cares. It doesn't change the facts.

One would hope.
The only other FPS that I can think of that runs at 60fps on consoles is Call of Duty, they are also not known as graphical power houses, however Rage has far better draw distances amongst other things...
To Id softwares credit, they did do an amazing job with demonstrating the possibilities of Mega-texturing, should be interesting to see what happens with that technology in this coming console cycle, I'm expecting console gamers are wanting more PC-like levels of graphical fidelity, to match PC textures, they're going to have to use it more prominently.

In terms of graphics technology, why waste time on technology that doesn't benefit the visuals? It takes brains to decide what technology should or shouldn't be used to get the best results. And even from a technical point of view, I don't know how you can argue that Rage was more technically impressive than other games. Sure, their approach to texture mapping was something new, but it didn't really help and from what I've heard, it also made the game harder to develop. Coding should balance of efficiency and quality. Rage's engine seemed to lack both. IMO, the approach he took with their engine was not the smartest choice because results is what matter most. The thing is, you can add new rendering possibilities to an engine with more power. But those possibilities also require more technical prowess. Im not sure if its him who said it, but I think I remember him saying that only really smart coders will be able to take advantage of the increases in power they will be getting to work with. If you really want to see who's the smartest, then you need to start looking at the new game engines. 

" And even from a technical point of view, I don't know how you can argue that Rage was more technically impressive than other games " Show me where I did so.

And I don't think that you are in the position to say what coding should do - it's up to the coders to decide. Judging *after* something is done is especially easy, in my opinion. You can do it better? Do so and share your research and results with us.

Also, you are never "wasting" time for new techniques. Now everybody knows that the Rage-approach with this implemetation was perhaps the wrong decision so if another person might get the same idea he knows he has to do it in a different way.

It's very possible that other coders thought about the approach he took but knew, before even trying, that it wouldn't yield great results. It's also very possible that the engine itself was the reason their development cycle took soo long. If he was really smart, maybe he wouldn't have taken that approach. 

Nope.  I'm aware of the advances and how far we've come but I still think to myself--"Wow.  I'm controlling what's going on on my TV".  Even Super Mario 64.  I think of the 8-bit days and then I play SM64 (not the first to do this, of course) and I'm impressed that there's a whole world on the screen.  I look up and there's sky.  I look down, and there's a stream.  In the water, there's fish.  I can climb trees or chase bunnies.  The whole thing just floors me sometimes.

 I guess that's why I'm one of those guys that doesn't care so much about frames per second or resolution.  It's all impressive and I can detect quality but I tend to appreciate what a game gets right more than the superficial stuff it gets wrong.  And it just keeps getting better and better.  From the slide show cinematics of Ninja Gaiden on the Nes to the movie-like production values of Beyond Two Souls.  I love it.

What? Ok, now it gets ridiculous. You only know *afterwards* if your idea wasn't the way you expected. Given that this is industry and business we are talking about and not science where you can spend as much money and time as you wish you even have to ship if your expectations aren't met. It is not smart to say that smart people don't make mistakes.