The Graphics update was unnecessary

[Tethan]

It's genuinely confusing why they redid so many elements of the faces and characters. We aren't getting any new features or new types of gear out of this that we didn't before, so I fail to see why there were so many changes instead of just punching up the textures and models to a higher poly count and resolution size.
Why did they have to remodel the viera face? Bake entirely new shadows into the texture, mess with eye and pupil sizes, mess with the face topology, remodel noses, etc? They said they were going to keep characters looking the same and then redid and redesigned a bunch of elements entirely.

As I understand it, it was necessary to unify the face topology to implement the new face rigs/animation system. Meaning that all faces, hyur, lala, roe, viera etc, have the same face structure, ie. the amount and placement of polygons. That, however, doesn't explain the lack of care in recreating all features, as some were preserved exquisitely and some were changed drastically, seemingly at random.