Yea even in the multiplayer to me gears of war 3 easily looks the best because of the advancements in lighting unreal engine saw. gears 2 looks like slightly better then 1. I really i think the main advancements last gen saw over the years was the move to differed  lighting  and mainly cleaner AA solution those were the main sticking points to me.

Again, it's not speculation that mature, standardized parts are easier to work with and fully harness than exotic new hardware like the PS3's Cell processor, that's fact.

Developers usually get pretty high hardware utilization early on in a console generation.
The Xbox 360 saw dramatic improvements in visual fidelity over it's lifetime, Halo 3 was utilizing the Xbox 360's hardware 100%, yet Halo 4 is a massive leap over that title visually.

But as time goes on... Developers work out which effects the hardware is better at and which effects tank performance... They then get rid of the effects which tank performance and use that freed up processing to bolster other effects for a larger overall improvement in visuals.

Gears 2 and 3 were certainly a step up over Gears 1, the rendering pipeline alone was overhauled rather substantially.

I never argued that fact. You saying that it's impossible for ps4 to match ps3 graphical progress because ps3 was exotic complex hardware that's my argument with you. As Pemalite explained above with halo 3 to 4, massive visual gains are more likely to come from developers learning how to make the best use of the hardware as well as evolving there engine and rendering technics to make best use of the hardware.

Except PS4 was, by intentional design, mature, well-documented, and very straightforward hardware, so figuring out how to best use it was relatively easy and painless for developers. Not so with PS3, which notoriously took years for devs to wrap their heads around.

yea this is not going anywhere. you seem to be stuck on the same thought process. The reality is most of 360/ps3 gains was with developers Learning how to make games look better, and learning how to use the hardware efficiently. Not because ps3 was complex hardware, if ps3 was a very easy to develop for, all you would have seen was much bigger gains during that gen. The reason that gen games kept looking better was because they kept learning new rendering technics  that had never been used before, and guess what? it's the same with this gen.

The more difficult your hardware is to work with, the harder it is to get the most efficient use out of it. Conversely, if your hardware is very easy to work with, there's less room for improvement because it will be easier to use it efficiently from the beginning.

One of Sony's top priorities on PS4 was on making it as easy to develop for as possible: https://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/09/the-ps4s-developer-friendliness-explained-more-games-in-less-time/

Meanwhile the struggles developers had mastering the PS3's Cell are well known.

Again you keep bringing up ps3 difficulty. 360 was a easy console to develop for and saw similar gains, and sony first party studios are wizards when it comes to making amazing graphics. Even if ps3 was easy to develop for you would have still seen the same gains, probably more, and  just multiplats  games running better on ps3. you are focusing on the wrong aspect when it comes to gains.

Even 360's hardware was more exotic at launch than PS4/Xbone were. It didn't employ mature standardized technology like current gen systems do.

360 hardware within a year after release was  mature standardized technology that didn't stop it from making massive gains. Some of the biggest gains came when  it was ancient tech, Halo 4, and Forza horizon for example. 

First it was about ps3 complex tech, now your argument is about PS4/Xbone having  mature standardized technology, therefore  gains will be impossible to match lastgen exotic hardware. it doesn't really matter if it's mature standardized technology, if it's not a console like a ps4/xbox because developers would waste very little resources mastering it. That's why PC gaming graphics have seen  gigantic gains after current gen consoles were released. You also completely  ignore permalite explanation. It's fine if you are not impressed by the progress of ps4 games, but trying to pass off your opinion up as fact with weak arguments is not.