I liked this post, thankyou for writing it.
On the whole "dated graphics" thing, I have been forming a theory of why I like FFXI graphics better than the shiny new games. In FFXI the characters and NPCs look a lot like dolls and toy soldiers, they have a simple and pure doll-like quality, which is very charming and attractive.
Its like in real life, I think actual real dolls, toys and manga characters etc. are often more beautiful than real people, even though real people are in super-realistic high definition. I still prefer my clunky old Motoko Kusanagi films from decades ago, even though she looks nothing like a real person, she looks like a doll. And I like that, there is a certain simple gracefulness to dolls that isn't the same when we look at a human being, with all their complexity and details.
So I'm starting to think that the FFXI doll-like simplicity of character graphics, is actually like the "Goldilocks Effect" of videogames. It is not "too cold" like the old 2D stickman games, but not "too hot" like the hyper-realistic shiny new games. It may be that FFXI-era graphics was actually the perfect sweet-spot inbetween too simple and too complex graphics.
So its like, where do we get off the Realism Bus. I've been on this computer-graphics bus since 1981, when I was running home from school to load my cassette-tape games with their 2D graphics. Do I keep riding this bus until games look more realistic than real life, or do I get off the bus at the point in time where games have a certain magical doll-like charm, with toy soldiers and dolls, which are elegant in a simple and pure way, like all the best dolls and manga always were.
Speaking for myself, I've been on this computer-graphics bus for a long time, and this place here is my stop. The FFXI level of graphics is where I want to get off the bus.