Not to mention comparing screenshots from 1.0 with ARR, environment textures had a ridiculously low colour pallete - the 1.0 Black Shroud for instance everything was five shades of green with maybe a bit of dark grey for good measure. It made patches of flowers stand out more because that was a splash of colour amongst a dull and bland background. ARR at least has variation in it's environments. And the poor lighting made it worse. It was obvious that was the trade off for having wide open seamless worlds and highly detailed character models. ARR clearly has slightly less detailed character models, but better looking environments.

Like everything in life, you have to make compromises and sacrifices, and personally I think Yoshi-P made the right choice with the design of ARR. But of course, too many people want their cake and to eat it too.