Another example is the world of warcraft graphic engine. Even though its aged for 5-6 years already, and honestly it looks realy bad compared to all the games currently, the game still has millions of players all over the world.
I see your point about quality of the visual style over the sheer quality of the graphics, but I think you just totally ruined it when you mentioned World of Warcraft just after.
Because, you know.
World of Warcraft is, to me, the videogaming equivalent of the old saying: "eat s**t, millions of flies can't possibly be wrong!" :P
But i'm already healed!