Yeah, well, see, that's the point. You were floored because you are involved into such stuff and know how much work was going in and how much scrutiny was needed to get this improvement. I wasn't floored, as I know this is just a fleeting moment in a game I might play for hundred hours. The reason I was impressed by Ratchet&Clank and Kena was, that they showed gameplay. Sure, Kena showed no gameplay that is impossible today, but it showed nice gameplay which probably keeps me entertained. For Horizon I am excited, because I know what gameplay to expect, but they showed little to none. The graphical improvements will not keep me in excitement over a 100 hour play-session. There might be moments when I think: this scenery looks nice, or this object looks great. But most of the time it will not be on the front of my mind, as I play.

Sorry, I know how much work goes into this kind of thing, but I also always ask myself: what if some of that work would've gone into gameplay improvements. And for some games it does. Again R&C and Kena look exciting for this exact reason. But the graphical wow that keeps you blowed away all through the game is probably a thing of the past. Alone the talk about 'watch the 4K trailer to see the improvement' makes it clear, that the improvements aren't that obvious anymore.

Rachet and Clank really seems very 'next-gen' to me. The other games not so much. I'm actually a little surprised that it's a cartoony game which stood out to me as 'this is a big graphical advancement' more than the realistic games.

Yeah I’m also not exactly impressed much. I’m sure there’s a lot going on under the hood and that’s all great for the quality of life of developers, but in the end nine out of ten people, including me, only care about the final picture. And that looks basically like what we have already. With some added detail if you really zoom in and look for it. Likewise with the UE5 demo, where they make a point on how ‘cool’ a certain flock of bats is. I’m sure it’s great that this engine can now make a flock of bats with a single mouse click, but it’s not like we couldn’t have a flock of bats looking and behaving (or at least to the naked eye) exactly like it before. It’s all a big “whatever”. If the improvements noticeable in the final, dried up image are this tiny going from the 8th to 9th gen, I dread to see the next ‘leap’.

I think you should put on your OP

I am impressed. It exceed what I expected.
We have to consider that the better the visuals, the slim is the perceptual improvement.
So, I expected almost nothing more than we already have in ps4 pro or one x.
The lighting, the fine geometry, and the number of details, specially in the scenario.
Feels a bigger leap than PS3 to PS4, imho.

Yet, the bigger improvements are technical. Instant asset access excites me in the new gaming possibilities.

NES to SNES is a tiny little jump compared with SNES to N64 and that's my point.

And Wii U/Switch games look the same practically.

Did you read my whole post? To me the PS5 looks no different than PS4, so if Switch 2 is close to PS4 then it will be close to PS5 to me in visuals. I'm not saying ultra hardcore graphics obsessed gamers think this, but the majority of people buying these don't really care about these minor differences. The graphical leap from Ps1 to Ps2 and PS2 to PS3 was massive and very easy to see for consumers. PS4 wasn't as bit of a leap forward and PS5 looks almost the same as PS4 to me. Therefore when Switch 2 comes they will, I predict, in the eyes of the vast majority of gamers, (which aren't Digital Foundry obsessed gamers) gain quite a lot of ground in graphics.

Obviously the super hardcore will find differences, but that isn't the main consumer base.

Reduced loading to instant loading times will be a huge deal for me cause i enjoy games like Monster Hunter and souls series and the faster that resetting to a new play goes the better,keeps you energetic the whole playtrough.

I dunno if it's just because I've never had a Pro, but current gen now looks pretty ugly and lifeless to me now having seen some of these trailers for next gen. R&C, Kena and HZD2 in particular look like a big step forwards. Foliage doesn't look completely terrible and obviously 'gamey' anymore.

Honestly the reason why many people said the generational leap between PS3 and PS4 was rather small was because we had big graphical showpieces like The Last of Us or Beyond Two Souls just right before the PS4 was released and it took some time until the games which really showed off the PS4s power like The Order 1886 arrived.
Also on PS3 generation developers constantly went over the render budget and made games with bad framerates whereas in the PS4 generation devs were much more conservative and didn't overstrain the systems as often. So we did lose some graphical advancements in order to get more stable games.