What do you mean? You do not agree that some aspects of Rage are a step back from other games?
Look at a driving video, when a car goes into a shadow. It basically makes the car darker, but there is no projected shadows. Also look at explosions, they don't actual light up the room. Everything's prebaked, because there is no way it could have been realtime.
It was realtime in doom 3, but with huge limitation in terms of view distance, room size and many other stuff.
I would say it is the first time I've seen Carmack actually have to go back to a simpler solution from one engine to another. Not saying it's not justified, because of course it is considering how widely different the scope of Tech 4 and Tech 5 are, but it's still a compromise.