Well, it aint that different, sure the 720p games was not great but even 1080p back then was not great because AA was not good at stopping alaising back then.
People are going to have there opinions on what resolution is acceptable, my point is, its nothing new that small visual differences matter a lot to console fans.
Hardware power is a product of fanboyism each side fires each other up.
I remember back in the era speculation threats users like thuway and other isers like him would be "PS5 is gonna be goat
heheh" and of course there were also xbox fans saying ps5 is going to be a disaster etc etc
This is just the way it is, its nothing new.