FPS degredation: Why?

Since I've made the jump to the 360, I can't help but notice how the technology in many FPS has degraded. Before you flame me, here me out. I remember playing this killer xbox game called red faction 2. Although it sold like crap, this game was innovative for one huge reason: Fully destructable environments. I'm not talking about desks and urinals being blown up here. I'm talking about the ability to literally blow huge holes in walls and physically walk through them to the other side! Ever play mercenaries? You could flatten entire TOWNS with cannons, tanks, whatever (I think the outfit had some destruction like this one). Fast forward to shooters on the 360. Call of Duty 3 and Gears of War, widely considered the best shooters on this system each don't let you lay waste to your environment. COD 3 in particular was surprising and disappointing that they don't allow buildings to get flattened. Nothing is dumber than calling in a huge airstrike against a wood fram barn in this game and seeing the structure virtually unchanged after an .88 just went nuts on its roof. It bothers me that with the processor power of this system that they neglect this. Red Faction came out almost 5 years ago! You can't honestly tell me they can't achieve this effect. Here's another disturbing thing that is left out of many of these shooters: lack of bots. Remember perfect dark on n64? Bots were smart and deadly and made it possible to have an online-like experience and enjoy that aspect of the game even if you lacked a connection. Perfect dark on the 360? No bots. That sucks in my eyes. You can say "well just go online" all you want, but you would help to justify the laziness of these developers. I want these features in games from now on. I want higher standards with the improved technology. This means no more 30 frames per second because that is just laziness as well. Would it kill a studio to try something new as well? How about a mideval type of FPS similar to oblivion where barbarians sever heads and scantily clad amazon women hurl sharpened boomerangs at enemies? That would be great and oblivion proved that sword fighting and fps's are possible (not to mention unreal 2and it's sword fighting dynamic). I understand that Gears does some innovative things, but in the end it is just more of the same. It is sa stale genre and nobody seems to care, even though features from years past are being left on the cutting room floor that would at the very least make for some spectacular explosions. I want the laziness to stop and treat us right as gamers!

Pretty sure you missed the point. Nobody has patented destructible environments in videogames or bots. You're hopeless

That's better and I appreciate you clarifying. I agree from a graphical standpoint these new games are far superior to Red Faction and other last gen games, but there is far more power under the hood this time around which is essentially my point here. It just seems like non destructable environments at this stage in the game is unacceptable given the power of the 360 and the fact they pulled it off last gen. If I'm not mistaken, Gears of War was in development for a LONG time, I'm not sure how long, but you would think they could have worked some kind of destructable environments in. And as far as the inclusion of bots in these games, this should be fairly easy because the ai of your enemies in these games is improving all the time and I would think they could just make lots of them and easier to kill over and over. To me, these two features are very achievable and I honestly think developers are just pushing out cookie cutters of games with better graphics and negelecting real advancement. COD 3 is my favorite game, maybe all time, but having a panzer tank lobbing shells at the 6 inch thick wall you are hiding behind over and over with nothing happening is just stupid plain and simple.

Thanks all for your responses. I guess I I fail to see all the other things developers must now put into games like the smoke, etc. I guess I'll just have to be patient, but my point is this: developers are trying to make the game as real as possible with the smoke effects, crazy human graphics, and other things. But how realistic is it when you shoot a panzerfaust at a wood barn and it takes no damage? That's just plain stupid and I'd gladly compromise some in the graphics department in exchange for some environment destruction.

Respectully, I don't quite understand what you're saying here. Are you implying that being able to use these guns is in itself a huge selling point for a FPS? I think you are just making a statement that the fake stuff we play is more exciting that the real thing, which is what they are (no pun intended) shooting for of course. I hope I never have to go to real war and find out if what you say is true, believe me!
Oh by the way, I DO consider Oblivion to be a FPS in many respects although it is clearly a role playing game. All the dynamics of a FPS are present in the combat, especially the archery. It just doesn't involve guns. I'm no fan of copying game ideas, but they could come up with some great ideas that build on this type of combat