I just feel like they could have pushed it just a tad bit more in the graphical department. Of course I could be wrong and this could be all that was possible, but I kind of doubt that.
I'm sure they would make the game look nicer if they could, especially given the competition released recently, so what do you think is this thing holding them back from doing that?
What your supposition suggests is that all companies have a bar of graphics that they all know they must reach, even in games with different scope and perspective, and it even applies to games that were already years in development when that bar was raised. It also suggests that Bethesda are either incompetent developers for not reaching that bar, or they've purposefully gimped the visual quality of one of their flagship titles for absolutely no reason other than to see how much they can screw consumers and still win game of the year.
I do not think them either malicious nor incompetent based on how well received every one of their games are, to the bewilderment of many on gaf. Their design is the epitome of greater than the sum of its parts, so even though people can point out single bad textures in areas, the time spent looking at that texture is less than half a second before moving onto the hundreds of others in adjacent rooms. In return for that bad texture, you get those adjacent rooms, and the ability to go anywhere at anytime, and blah blah all of the other things people include in what Bethesda games have to offer. That single texture was not a priority because it will quickly be forgotten in the moment to moment gameplay, or perhaps not even noticed at all, something that I think screenshots and looped gifs don't get across.
(For instance, the animation issues people are speaking of with the Vault-tec door salesman above this post occur as the player already has the door halfway closed. The player would normally never see that animation, which is why it's not picture perfect, because focusing on it would be a waste of time and resources. I find the scrutiny of that particular animation to be unwarranted and unrepresentative of animation quality elsewhere in the game.)
I believe that Bethesda did the best they could with what they had in their four year time frame, all of their decisions for what to focus on made with deliberate reason and purpose because they are professionals and veteran game designers, and that there are already clear and significant improvements in almost every aspect, including graphics, from their previous titles. Not much more to ask from them than that.
I guess what I meant to say with all of that is I'm sure there's probably a series of very good of reasons Bethesda didn't "push it just a tad bit more in the graphical department" because Bethesda is a competent developer, and that they've already pushed a fair bit even when they didn't have to to get sales.
We do pay them, not the modders :>