Don't think it helps indies that much though, People already complain if you don't have more than normal and specular maps with stencil shadows and still want all the bells and whistles.
Who does? I doubt most casual gamers would know what a stencil shadow was if it slapped em on the butt. People want a good looking, well presented game experience thats FUN to play. Take Eschalon for example. The graphics technologies are all early-mid 90s but they are fantastically done, with a gameplay & plot to keep you playing (and buy the next chapter).
A game can have 10000000000 trees & grass objects, exploding barrels & buildings that bounce everywhere, advanced ragdoll physics and all the shaders under the sun. But if its a jerky, unplayable nightmare on almost every machine w/o a state-of-the-art £2000 PC, no decent story and bad gameplay the wow factor soon wears off.