great point, i think the realism thing has taken creativity and thrown it out the door... If you base the rules of the game, on the rules of real world then you lose a bit of that creative edge, and potential. Realism has limits, and that is why it is bad for gameplay development. Good games have meta games that you have to learn, and hopefully over time, evolve. A meta game will evolve if the game has depth. Starcraft has a metagame that is changing even today, showing that it has a HUGE skill ceiling and huge depth, a game that even after 10 years has not been pushed to it's limit is amazing. Other games like CS have different styles of metagames, until recently, the best CS teams were literally won on raw aim alone, but the last year has seen the birth of new strategies, such as pushing de_dust2 while on defense. It's gone from a slow game to a game where its been much more aggressive, leaning for other teams to figure out how to counter these new strategies. Now games without alot of depth don't change much, these would be like COD4, strategies haven't changed at all since the game came out. I actually scrimmed with my team a couple days ago and everyone was playing the same spots as my old team did...... when the game came out. Even with the AWP sniper patch, even with the no sway patch, even with the removal of deep impact, the way the game works is still near the same, the way people play has hardly changed at all, other the running a sniper in tighter maps.
..... but I'm the kinda guy who likes a game that evolves, that you can't figure out quickly, with rules you have to discover, and techniques you have to master. Its great enjoyment for me to get better at games. I always like a challenge, : ).