Agreed. The freedom and realtime aspects of Uru and Myst 5 are definitely great, but the graphics just don't compare with the beauty of the fully rendered scenes in Myst 4, 3, Riven, 1. (although the original Myst game's graphics are very dated at this point)
Although, Necro, they didn't go 3D until Uru and Myst 5. Myst 3 and 4 were still pre-rendered, they just went to spherical VR nodes instead of just stills, which, IMHO makes the games even more amazing.