The thing is, the uproar about the graphics in FM3 haven't been about the cars around you - the only reduced-polycount car is your own, which you don't see that much of anyway.
I'm sure by now everyone knows the difference between Photo Mode and proper play mode. Besides, irrelevant of the mode, those are still the graphics. You can load the game up and see those images, right on the screen, being rendered in realtime. So what's the problem?
I'm not a big fan of new Bimmers with the very smooth curves to the bonnet, but that's quite nice. Still looking forward to this (and have informed the other half I'll be buying it day one and taking the launch day off work)