The weather effects and condensation on Samus’s visor in Metroid Prime had this same feeling. It’s been quite a while since such minor graphical details in a game held me in such awe.
Curious to hear more about your stance on view distance because you felt it needed to be mentioned twice.
I can’t imagine anything about increased potential being inherently bad in an of itself, but it does present more opportunities for level designers to fall short by under-utilizing the spaces.
There is a level of charm that came from the compromise forced by technical limitations which pushed a lot of detail into sky boxes and other 2D workarounds to simulate a 3D space. Even so, it was always frustrating when you became aware that those details would only ever be unavailable to explore up close.