I guess I'm not convinced that the graphics whores are all casual gamers (or even the majority). Similarly, the younger gamers, some of whom are legit hardcore, might not remember ye goode auld days when gameplay was king and CGA was good enough. You're looking at some culture change there. You're right though--a portion of the folks needing to refocus won't stick around anyway. The transition might not be too painful or time consuming.
No no, it's not that casual gamers are graphics whores.
It's that they're CASUAL - as in they don't want deep, demanding, and complex gameplay and they certainly don't want games that require endless patching. They just want to have some fun and be done with it.
That's why casual gamers prefer consoles, though I'm sure they appreciate aesthetics - but don't we all. Piracy is getting all the blame, but in reality it's the fact that consoles are a hell of a lot easier to support and develop for. Piracy is the same problem it always was. Yeah, it's a lot easier today but the market is gargantuan in comparison to what it was. Games cost more to develop, but as I've argued before - they don't have to.
That's why I expect something very similar to what we knew ~15 years ago.
That said, I'm not suggesting we go back to archaic interfaces or downright rotten production values - and developers should certainly use the knowledge gained these past years. Also, the tools and hardware available are much more powerful and easy to use than back in the day, and as a result you don't need the same kind of manpower to produce games on a big scale, nor is it impossible to make them look pretty damn good without zillions of dollars.
It's the movie-style cinematics and audio we're going to have to live without, and I have no problem with that.