That is great news, I'm happy it'll look more realistic. But what do you mean by realism? Better 3D modelling = realism?
To me art is not essentially about realism. IWD didn't perform well in regards of realism. In fact we all know realism was not its strong side, but still, when you look at the art... it comes out on top. And it's not just an issue of taste. It's just amount of artwork put into the game. Hand drawn pictures, little details everywhere.
An oil painting is not realistic and yet... I hope you get what I mean.
Art does not necessarily mean solely the visual part. I mean rather to me the visuals of the game are making up a bigger conglomerate and the artwork is also part of this.
Music is art too, but that's an all together different matter for now.
Changing the art style? Heaven forbid! The art style is great but the mood is not... it's hard to say, it's just not warm enough to me. I'm not saying flashy colours are good, that's BS. IWD is not flashy either, the only reason it has more contrast of colours is the snowy, icy environment, which is inherently a bit flashy. Whereas if you look at the interiors of dungeons or materials and textures of Kuldahar, the wooden building interiors and so on... those are 100% dope fantasy props. It's not high resolution and it's old graphics but aesthetically it's a great achievement!
Anyhow the greyish, darker colours of PoE is great too. It represents a certain direction and it's unique (!!!), I'm more than allright with that. But. I. need. More. Art. Handcrafted, classical art that does not need to look sharp or realistic at all. Take a look at an impressionist painting (you too Thaumaturgist)
Diablo 1-2 is also a dark. It's even more dark, but still
So once again all I wanted to emphasize here is that the game needs more artwork put into it. I might be alone with my opinion, maybe to others a superdungeon or more voiceovers are more important.