While it's easy to attribute that to the artists, seeing those pictures it seems they got the (thankless?) task to give the EGA pictures a new coat of paint. So

While it's easy to attribute that to the artists, seeing those pictures it seems they got the (thankless?) task to give the EGA pictures a new coat of paint. Sounds more like factory line work to me than 'artistic vision'. Some of the EGA graphics stand out more, but I think the VGA graphics do exactly what they are meant to do: more colourful pictures to show off your new video card in all their gradient glory ;)