Look at it this way... we all know FF7 was a popular game and a lot of people played it, and loved it... It was a good game! Though by today's standards... the graphics are crap!

BUT, IF FF7 never came out back then... and then it was released today, as exacly the same game, same old graphics... nothing changed...
Would people still like it? Would people still play it? Would it have such a big fanbase?

While I'm sure there would still be some FF fans that would buy it, and it would still be a good game... even with commercials, I'm sure that no where near as many people would even pick it up and play it... and thus the fanbase would be a LOT smaller. Even many FF fans wouldn't buy it, and might lose faith in Square cause of that. And it would probably become one of those games that the majority of people forget about eventually. Of course, lets forget how people would react to seeing such old graphics... lol cause seeing something like that released in this day and age by a company like Square, would probably get more attention just because of the strangeness. lol

So, in that way, I still think graphics are pretty important!
Its the graphics that give people the BIG first impressions of a game, whether or not they know that consciously. I'm not saying people don't read reviews before they actually deside to buy something... Just saying its a bigger factor than some of you think!
Its kind of a human subconscious thing to pic pretty things first. lol