An aspect of old school rpgs that I’ve always been fond of are the atmospheric text descriptions of objects and locations ... ... reading in place of pure eye candy.
You nailed it. The fantastic visual improvements of the 'Age of 3D' do nothing more than steal 'processing time' from the most powerful of all engines - human imagination. That's where the atmosphere (and, basically, fun) is 'generated' - not in the game code.
That's the main reason why books will never be put out of business by any visual media: they rely on the enormous possibilities of imagination, which can put to shame any most advanced visuals. It's programming, but not for machines, for people's imagination.
I'd say, a lot of these modern overbloated visuals must go to make room for what games are all about in the first place. They (visuals) steal focus from things which are much more essential to the game. (the success of several indie - and even abandonware - titles more than proves this point).
All that chase to beat the reality in terms of realism is just another typical western ouroboros. Gotta snap out of it.
If you want to innovate, then concentrate more on the 'client-side processing'
- something very powerful that lies (slumbering and hungry) deep inside of every player\reader, which can build those images for him\her much brighter and impressive than you actually can hope to.
Just give'em seeds to grow.
In other words:
if you want to make a great game, program imaginations, not computers.