Quote - Poly count has less impact on quality then texture.

Yes and no... :)

A crap mesh that easily tears isn't going to get much help, even from the best texture mapping. A solid mesh with crap textures will still look ugly. Excellent and mindful lighting can overcome some shortcomings in either texture or mesh (or both), but bad lighting can make even the best marriage of texture and mesh look like utter sh!t. A renderer that isn't up to snuff (or is set horribly wrong) can destroy an image faster than even the crudest of any component.

Composition figures in there too, big time. 'Cross-Eyed Slack-Jawed Vicky Staring Into Space' (whilst carrying $weapon in $temple, natch), anyone? Figures that float above the floor - no amount of kick-ass lighting, mesh-work, or texturing can fix that one. Breasts that defy gravity. Joint bends that even the most flexible gymnast would wince at.

'course, such things as lighting and composition are all up to you, the user. The mesh and texture are (unfortunately) usually up to the merchants (unless you roll your own). Renderers and compositing suites are usually up to the vendors (but even here you can do quite a bit to improve over any shortcomings found in any one suite/app, courtesy of exportation and importation, yes?)

But... it's all a balance.

I just thought it was hella cool to see how they did it back in the day, back when a simple fly-though scene took weeks of painstaking work (and some damned primitive but pricey gear), just to get the literal equivalent of a wireframe animation.

I think I'd like to re-create that scene sometime... wireframe and all, just to see how long it would take.