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I notice that when game makers discover a new trick, they tend to overuse it. I recall it was like that when light sources were first the big thing (such as Perfect Dark) and also when cel shading caught on.

They've established the "fourth glass wall" many times before in games, and bloom seems to be their way of making the light real and keeping that wall firmly in place. You're never going to get rid of that TV screen in front of you, but developers might as well make it seem like whatever is on the other side of that screen seem more real. It will get toned down after the "wow" factor on the game-making side has faded.

I liked the explanation I heard of the Pirates 3 thing: the most nightmarish place you can send a pirate is a place completely absent of water (and, in that sense, familiarity). They made that scene look dry and barren, which wouldn't have worked as well if the sand weren't so white and salt-like in appearance. (Weren't those the Salt Flats in Utah, anyway?)

I'll admit the first one is another example of "bloom gone wrong," but the last two pictures look fine. The second one, especially, has lush greens and the light diffusion technique you mentioned on the Etrian Odyssey box art. It's a very entrancing screen shot. The color in the third isn't good, but it shows a lot of detail in the temple.

I think my main point of disagreement is this, since I've danced around it enough to completely miss the point: If the visuals are still captivating, what's the problem? I can't see anything in the first one of those DragonStrike shots, which is bothersome and worthy of complaint, but the GTA4 with the taxi in it and the last two ones you posted show a lot of craft. These aren't just tiled mountains and grass like in Shadows of the Colossus; these are detailed images which express art with a more "earthy" tone. When an artist paints a landscape, do they paint with every color of the rainbow? No, of course not. At least, not all in one painting.

Could those have been more visually appealing with unusual or unexpected colors? Maybe. Would they invoke the mental images that people have of real places like New York's streets or Europe's rolling green hills? Probably not. Sometimes people don't want to leave the planet; sometimes they just want to leave their homes, even if it isn't that far away.

But the bloom thing I won't argue; it's starting to get out of hand.