Development Hell: why doesn't anyone release games with last generation graphics? Options

[Wounded Ronin]

So today I was listening to Noah Antwiller's rant about The Bureau: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tubjm4QwIQI

There are lots of games in the history of gaming where the product had to be re-done one or more times due to having to do the graphics over, e.g. Duke Nukem Forever.

Typically this happens when the dev time gets drawn out a long time. And instead of having a game that is really really well developed or well done in some way you get something that is simultaneously late and rushed. It doesn't really get the benefit of a long development time.

It seems like then players are hardly ever satisfied with the product then anyway, so what was the big deal in re-doing the graphics?

I mean, wouldn't you think that people would rather play a really good game with old gen graphics (lower system requirements!) than a POS with clunky high end graphics that is hard to run? What is with this unwavering conventional wisdom that graphics must be re-done repeatedly if they're a little bit old?