I think you lost sight of what made those games great. Certainly not how they looked. Getting more skilled artists on the job, with a fresh perspective on the world, would be awesome.
Yes, bad wording on my part. I used to be in the "looks don't matter at all" camp - and there are very many "ugly" games that I have thoroughly enjoyed. However, if you look at the way our brains are wired, one of the ways that we derive "fun" is on a strictly visual level. I think that traditional pixel art is inherently "fun" because it follows rigorous guidelines that produce something most people think is visually pleasing, yet at the same time challenges the brain to interpret it (vs. something that is completely realistic). Like anything else, fun derived from visual stimulus can wear off when it becomes "ordinary" - which is why seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time is thrilling, but seeing it 100 times is considerably less so.
In other words, yes the game would be great regardless of its looks - but a visually pleasing setting only helps the cause.
