Most indies aren't professional at all, thats where the stigma comes from. So I completely disagree with indies being professional. Probably less than 3% of indies would be what I'd consider professional, competent game developers.
Then they'd be amateurs not indies. It's really not fair to lump them together.
As for Doom 3 ... I meant it was the most tangible looking. Everything had a lot of depth and it looked as if you could just reach out and touch it.
Half-Life 2 by comparison looked like a more typcial old school game ... nice images on flat paper. Doom 3 just looked a lot more 'real' whereas Half-Life 2 among others still looked like cartoons or something. It looked real in a few spots but if I wanted to show of graphics to someone I'd show them Doom 3, not Half-Life 2. The fidelity is just so much more in your face.
Comparing it to a plastic model is actually very cool because it's something you can touch and that's exactly how I felt about it. To me it didn't look too far off from CG rendered movies like Toy Story etc... Of course both still look like plastic models.