I can't help but think you're easily impressed.
I think it was two factors. First the display - I can't focus closer than 35cm, so I'm mostly unable to discern the resolution limit, creating the illusion that if I only could get closer, I'd see more, essentially the illusion of infinite detail.
But more importantly that for years, I've felt that handheld computing is gradually growing in capability to the point where it is "good enough". Projecting into the future, it has been easy to extrapolate that eventually diminishing visual return at the high end and growing capabilities of the hand held devices is going to reach a tipping point. So it was fairly profound to hold my phone in my hand and see it confirmed, right there. It is graphics that is unequivocally superior to the current best selling stationary console. PCs, and the other stationary consoles are a bit better. But that's all they are - a bit better, at a power envelope a thousand times or so higher than the graphics processor of my phone. In a few years, when we're at 20nm or so lithography, they are still going to be a bit better, but the actual visual significance of that bit will have diminished even further.
At what point do we cease to care? Well, going by the success of the Wii and the DS vs. their better graphically endowed competitors, we are already beyond the point where the majority of consumers feel that improved graphics is the major determinant of their enjoyment. This can only get more and more pronounced as the low end keeps improving.
It is natural that people who are very enthusiastic or professional in a field are uncomfortable with the concept of "good enough". But it is absurd to believe that for instance real time radiosity would affect immersion or enjoyment to any significant degree. Or, in fact, at all. By the time we get there, other factors will be vastly more important to our experience, we have simply followed a technological trajectory far beyond the point where it ceased to make any appreciable difference.
The above is, of course, subjective. But I feel that the subjective part is
when we have reached "good enough", not
if we will. And having seen the Epic Citadel demo and Carmacks Rage demo, I'd argue that for a large part of the gaming population, we're already there.
