First, good ol' fashioned C coded A.I. was ditched and left to other online players to fill the gap

Now all effort on animated 3D / Pixel sprite interactive segments are being replaced with cookie-cutter and re-usable hand drawn stills over top of a static and bland background.

What game(s) inspired you to write this?

I do wholeheartedly agree with your first point. And not only have many foregone AI coding for online players... they (the devs) have often claimed that players don't want AI "bots" or that bots somehow "cheapen" the experience. DICE has used that line many, many times... and it's the reason I no longer play their games.

I'll probably agree for the rich AAA companies, they should be spending more. I stick with the idea that we should be more forgiving towards some indie devs though (with their lower budgets).

That's really terrible. They are getting bored with making a cool design so here we are