The difference between PS3's first year titles compared to PS4 are huge. PS4 is far from being a PS3.5, graphics have been a huge leap forward. The following pics are from games made by the same studio exclusively for PS3/PS4, in their first year.

The difference in detail is huge, the number of polygons pushed by Driveclub are far more than that in MotorStorm, the lighting is much more realistic, there is much better anti-aliasing, textures have much higher resolution and what cannot be seen in this image is that Driveclub has variable weather effects coming which all look very good, while MotorStorm didn't have any. Also the AI in Driveclub is much better, all despite Driveclub running at twice the resolution and having a more stable framerate than MotorStorm, which require a LOT of power which users on this site don't appreciate. Of course, MotorStorm has one advantage over Driveclub, as it had much more action on-screen at any time, though overall Driveclub wins by a mile.

Both next-gen consoles offer a lot more power than the previous consoles. What did people expect? Both went with hardware that is not expensive to make to start making money off the hardware itself earlier and this is the result.
Of course graphics (not specs, not resolution, not fps) because of new techniques in rendering (forward+, for example) to free the pipeline for doing even more stuff to impress console gamers. That is all we want and need. PC master race not included intentionally.

Kind of a given system memory wasn't enough in the days of PS2 to support high resolution textures, and very few games supported HD output but for the ones that did, for example if you compare GT4 at it's maximum achievable output to the SD version, the difference between them is quite staggering too, and it's the exact same console.

The main issue with the PS2 was that the standard output resolution just wasn't high enough to push out clean graphics, so the jump from SD to HD makes people percieve a bigger jump.

The pic on the right is still very clearly far behind PS3 standards.

And it's not just SD to HD, we went from barely any shaders at all with PS2 to fully programmable shaders with PS3. 

It also went from 32mb of usable memory for the entire level/track/etc to 256 dedicated and 256 poolable, it's a significant jump, but that's the point i'm making, even if the PS2 had the texture resolution and had the capacity for complex shaders, the standard output resolution would have crippled it to the point of making little to no difference anyway.

Texture resolution and mesh complexity mean nothing if you don't have the screen space to display them.

My personal opinion is that the consoles have been strategically configured for today's mainstream TV configurations. 1080p is the standard for now and will be for at least 5 more years; sure the fps need some work, but that will come in time and exclusive content from both Microsoft's & Sony's first party developers. They will ultimately prove that their console have it takes natively render 1080p at 60fps--possibly more. It is the next console generation that will jump on the 4k market if and when the majority of the population have embraced it.

The output resolution was a pretty good match for PS2's horsepower though, just as a 720p output was a good match for PS3's horsepower. 

Even if PS2 had a better output resolution, it didn't have the shading or texturing capacity to make good use of it.

Read my post above. You'll see how big the generational gap is. That is, of course, only if you have a PS4/XB1.

I've read your post, and I've played both PS4 and Xbone. I stand by my statement.

It really depends on which games you've played on them. Cross-generation games are not a good indicator. If you play Driveclub, you'll know what I mean by generational leap. It looks far better than anything on PS360.