While I can imagine, I don't know how Mass Effect 2 will turn out and how the bigger budget will affect it, that was a comment on the first game.
As for the writing and graphics distinction, you'll notice in my previous post that I didn't say that better writing required more writers, rather what I was referencing was writers having to write around the cost of voice acting. So in ME1, for example we got loads of encyclopedic, descriptive monologues, instead of full, reactive dialogues. Or, apart from the few pivotal, choice conversations, most main character lines were simple, direct basic questions which set up the aforementioned monologues.
Seriously, half the NPCs in ME were like those VI guides in Citadel Station.