People gravitate towards norms.  Norms change on a dime.  There's a lot of characteristics that people find beautiful today that were considered quite ugly last century.  Someone described as "beautiful and exotic" today would probably have been described as "sallow and ugly," to go by stories I've read and descriptions of actual people back then. 

Right now, the norm in the content community is extremely influenced by anime, at least in part because V4 is pretty clearly derivative of A3 (similar proportions, similar lack of definition, etc.).  Even in V3's time there were more classical bodies and adult faces in works than now.  It's almost impossible to make V4 have a defined face, or do anything about her extremely long limbs and oversized feet (both being definitive traits of anime characters, as I've read and seen demonstrated in some random drawing instruction books).  Cute dominates now partly because V4 dominates and V4 isn't very good at anything but cute.

When people cite their influences I've consistently seen people list Vallejo, Brom, Frazetta, the Pre-Raphaelites, and Renaissance artists.  Mostly very academic work or traditional fantasy illustration, with a lot more emphasis on striking than cute.  But all of the few I've seen cite anime artists are top merchants.  I remember when there used to be a lot more classically styled work in the galleries, but that was back when there was a lot smaller market and people were grateful for just about any content they could get, regardless of how much work it took to use it.  People did so much on their own that any shortcut was appreciated.  That also meant, though, that people made work that was a bit more to their own vision.

Now we're seeing a shift in the community again.  The concerns and issues surrounding V5 have illuminated the problem of depending on any one company to define what is and isn't possible in terms of content.  This project has demonstrated the ability of content creators to do excellent work guided by their own vision more than by one store's standard style.  Other projects seem to be underweigh.  New artists are coming to the forefront.  It will be interesting to see how the change in content and even in culture change norms.  I have no clue what will happen, but you can usually count on things not staying the same.