The Importance of Graphics in Next Generation Games, As Well As Analysis of Gaming People Groups

Right now, I do not own an Xbox 360 or any next generation console. Yesterday, I re-watched a demo video that I had downloaded of Gears of War. Now, sure, the game's a year old, but it still looks pretty freaking amazing. So, today I thought I would talk about graphics in video games.

Now first, I'll say that I truly love it when games have good graphics. I play games with crappy graphics simply because I also love games that have great gameplay and stories, but graphics are always a nice extra draw.
But here is my real stance on the issue: I could care less about the graphics in the games I play. Sure Gears of War looks awesome, Heavenly Sword looks beautiful, and every day John Carmack makes something even more beautiful than what he did yesterday, and yet ultimately the fun that I have while playing a game has nothing to do with the visuals.
Personally, I prefer really great gameplay and really compelling stories to graphics. To be completely truthful, I would buy and play a game that would take me forty hours to get through because of horrible gameplay just to experience the story. Other people could care less about the story of the game, and they just care about the gameplay. Now that's not really the way that I play, but I'm fine with those people. People who play just because of the graphics annoy me slightly, but not as much as other people. 'Graphics hounds' as I call them annoy me because they will buy a game because of its graphics, and then complain like crazy when some feature doesn't work, or when they can't figure out what to do. Me, I buy games that I want to buy, that I also believe will be compelling experiences.
Another group that I am not a big fan of at all, are people that I call 'Trend Followers'. have you ever walked into your local game store and found a group of people dressed in the latest 'hip' clothes, all talking about games like Halo 2 or Gears of War or shooters like that, and then you mention RPG's and real time strategy games and these same people are clueless? These are trend followers, people who play games that are popular, just to be popular. People who could care less about the actual gameplay experience as oposed to the 'popularity level' of the game.
I was in my local game store once, a week after the Xbox 360 came out. Some kid walked in and said he had one of the Premium Editions on order. The man went behind the counter and picked it up. The kid paid for it, and the man at the counter asked if he wanted any games with it. The kid said yes, and then the man behind the counter actually had to walk him through all of the available games because the kid had no idea what was available. Now this is perfectly fine, but it still annoys me that someone is going to lay down $400 (At launch time) for a brand new console, and they do absolutely no research whatsoever into what they're actually buying. After the kid picked out a couple of games, he then got into a discussion with the sales associate over HD graphics and TV's. He didn't even know what HD was, and truthfully thought that he was going to go home, plug his 360 into his old SDTV and get super sweet, super awesome graphics. Why wouldn't you research and look into a $500 purchase before you actually make the transaction? That just boggles my mind.

Anyways, that's enough for now, I've vented my thoughts, and even though I could go on for pages about Trend Followers, I think I'll just wait for a rainy day before writing that post.