I think that's only possible if the baseline aesthetics of a graphics pipeline are good, which is definitely not the case today. The shift toward realism is dri

I think that's only possible if the baseline aesthetics of a graphics pipeline are good, which is definitely not the case today. The shift toward realism is driving things down the same dead-end path that fine art found itself at the end of the 19th century. Most games today are the aesthetic equivalent of Orientalist paintings - technically accomplished depictions of exotic scenes that are vapid and crassly seductive. An emphasis on reusability only hastens this trend. To get the kind of modularity your after, you'd have to develop a system that's premised on an alternate set of aesthetics. Japanese games of the 80s and 90s were so successful because they took as their basis the broader artistic culture of anime and manga. The tools for creating games followed suit.