I actually like the more realistic touch. Never was a fan of cel-shading style, like the Wind Waker, or overly cartoonish, for RPGs (Tales of Symphonia was a stretch). Final Fantasy is a relatively good example (up to FFX).
Hmm, but at least you can still play
Wind Waker, without carving your eye out with a spoon.
I'm not sure if you're trying to imply that Wind Waker looks less dated. Wind Waker came out 5 years after FF7, and 3 years after FF8, and the "realistic" character models from these games look less dated than Wind Waker to me.
But I think that's actually besides the point.
The major problem for me is that the design in D:OS wasn't attractive. Compare D:OS characters to the characters in Kingdom Hearts.
Squall looks great. Mulan looks great.I'm not too fussed about which direction they decide to go. Everything I've seen from D:OS2 looks better so far, but I haven't had a good look at the 3D character design.
