To keep things even, the Wii needs to be compared to its contemporaries. After all, back in the day the Saturn was slammed for its poor 3D performance while the PS was slammed for its poor 2D performance, completely ignoring the strengths of each system. It's just the way things work.

The graphics for MP receiving a 9.5 was probably just IGN hedging their bets. Right now, it's pretty hard to give a Wii game a perfect score in graphics when you just finished playing Bioshock and are bombarded with screenies of Halo 3, Lair, Heavenly Sword, Assassin's Creed, CoD4, and Mass Effect on a daily basis.

I want to add something. The Wii has to calculate much lesser pixel, and therefore don't need the same power to calculate some impressive things. Number of Pixel for each resolution:

2073600 1080p
921600 720p
307200 480p

so 720p is three time more pixel, 1080p is 6.5 time more pixel. It is not like that the 360 (e.g.) need 6.5 more calculation power to do the same as the Wii does on a higher resolution. But it does matter.

If somebody has HL2 you can try it with you PC, the frame per seconds get up if you lower the resolution. If you have a CRT it is hard to tell the difference between the resolutions. Also the textures doesn't have to be in a "high resolution", so you can save RAM. I don't say the Wii can do what the others can, but the lower resolution helps to pull impressive things with the much lower horse power.

Edit: Ha, i knew it has to be somewhere! Back in the days, i played a lot CS. I had a CRT and not the most powerfull PC. That are the FPS i got on different solutions:

1024x786    55 FPS
800x600      68 FPS
640x480      79 FPS

Sayed at least the console :) The difference between the resolutions was hard to tell, only the 640x480 the graphic leaked a bit. Only the crossbar was bigger on the lower resolutions.

It is clear in the video's that in terms of next-gen component/texture features the game is lacking behind. Yet whitin their limitations they are immersively creative and they just know how to let it look all right.

Strange that almost no-one noticed that Killzone 2 just did the same trick. It isn't as good as the famous E3 trailer in the tech zone, but they just changed the approach from tech scenes like a forest, grass, river, bump mapping, HDR, etc etc (remember oblivion?) to a setting where you have to create your own light. Techwise not as good, but i won't complain!!!

As to the near perfect score etc., i think graphics have to be seen from a standpoint in witch you have to let the graphics tell the story. Look at McGee's Allice where you do feel that there is a fantasy dream going on and all that you see is a door passing over the entire level over and over again. On the other side Daikatana has a very immersive story and just beggs you to let you feel and live the game, but the graphics just can't let you feel a thing.

A golden box containing a diamond looks as good as a paper-plastic box containing chocolate.

Warning: No Computer Knowledge Ahead. Going by what I have heard from IGN.

So, does this mean that the Wii COULD display at 720p, like the Xbox, but it woud just take away from the Ram and, possibly, not display @ 60 FPS?

I know I have heard IGN say that the 60FPS helps give Wii games, for example MP3, a next-gen ish feel.

 Don't know if it can, because limits of the "Graphic Card Output", but just talking about calculation power it could. The games would just brucking a lot, a real lot probably. You would to have go down with the "Graphic Quality" a lot to get a fluid game.

I don't think MP3 or Galaxy show us, what the hardware can really do. I think there is still some power left.  

^I think there is plenty of power left. I think that spot is reserved for the Next Wii Zelda(at the earliest, 2009).

From a technical point of view, the Wii's GPU could do 720p... but to keep everything running fine, textures and other things would need to be lowered down. That's why Nintendo locked the Wii on 640x480. After all, to have that such small form factor, you must not have super-high clock speeds.

Just for an example, remember F-Zero X? It was the first N64 game to run at 60fps... but to achieve this, they lowered textures, models and environments to a minimum.

And I agree with Just_Ben, the Wii has much more to offer than what we have seen.

I don't think the Wii has a large enough framebuffer to run at 720p, but I could be wrong.

I understand this, but I guess I worded my post badly.  I guess my question is, what is the value of spending more on graphics hardware, as Microsoft and Sony chose to do, when you can produce games this stunningly beautiful on lesser hardware?  I guess it's hard to raise this question without sounding like flamebait.

Fun Fact; The xbox had games running at 720p