Shaders are easily where the game can see the most increase in visual quality for the least amount of work-- and I'm happy to see the progress they've made with them.

Outside of a critical need for AA, I hope they also touch on the landscape shaders. Specifically, I'd like see texture bombing-- essentially randomization to break up the repeating nature of the textures. This would do wonders for a lot of the older areas, and the best part is that it's possible without having to modify any of the existing assets.

As far as dreaming goes, I've also seen some claims in this thread that ray-tracing would not fit this game for multiple aesthetic reasons, but I don't believe that is true. IMO ray-tracing would do wonders both for reflections and for global-illumination, where the bounce lighting can affect colors.