Interesting rant.
Unfortunatley, ever since the 16-bit days, its the visuals that we the gamers have drooled over. Why? Its the easiest thing to judge. For the upcoming game releases, screen shots, footage and hands on impressions are all we, the consumers have to go on. Couple the fact the majority of gamers are still men, who are very, very visual oriented, and you've got this endless obession with visuals. We don't really complain about sound, unless its really, really bad.
Though we have to admit, its getting hard to define what is nex-gen. From 2d-3d, to 3d polys that you can count to 3d polys that you can't, judging nex-gen by visuals alone is tough. The question gamers have to ask themselves is: What can this new system do that my last gen console can't? Nintendo's Revolution answers this question with its controller, at least in theory. The devs have buy into the idea, and execute it. Though I'm pretty sure if/when we can control thousands of Pikmin on screen with a dash of the Wand, we can safely say we're next-gen.
For the 360/PS3, the knee-jerk answer to answer my question above is to make it bigger, better, or something completey different that couldn't have been done in the past. The scene in Kameo where she's in a battle with what seems to be thousands of creatures on screen is such an example.