So, I think I might actually prefer stylized CG over realistic. Some of my all time favorite games are so because of their style. A perfect example would be Okami. I’m pretty sure half the reason I love that game is its beautiful ink appearance…
Other examples would be Skyward Sword for its painterly style and I recently finished watching Knights of Sidonia, which is a 2D styled 3D animated series.
Anyone else interested in stylized CG?
I often think about this. It seems the goal of some 3D artists (myself included) is to make something as realistic and accurate as possible. However, perhaps one of the greatest things about CG is that we’re not confined to reality. We really can create anything we want to, so why limit ourselves to what we already see and live in every day?
Now, I’m playing my own devil’s advocate here, because I actually do prefer working on realistic CG (obviously it’s all completely down to personal preference, and neither is right or wrong). I also really like when the two are combined into surrealism, or like, stylized and unrealistic themes that are forced into the frame of a hyperreal presentation. This can often look creepy, but when done right, it’s just awesome. 
You’ve also stumbled on an observation that I think is very astute and definitely relevant to this discussion: the uncanny valley. The uncanny valley states that something becomes more endearing as it gets more realistic (this specifically pertains to human characters, but I think perhaps it can be applied anywhere), but drops off and becomes creepy right before achieving photorealism. I think images are sometimes also more endearing when they are less realistic. There’s a certain charm, for instance, in the simplicity of a character sketched on paper (or in photoshop) that very often cannot be achieved by an equivalent 3D character, even though it may not be as detailed or has one fewer dimension. 
i like both, i really like world of warcraft art style. for the past two years i’ve been liking stylized stuff more and more – however i prefer doing realistic stuff and studying anatomy, but that’s because i’m huge fan of anatomy.
The uncanny valley is an interesting discussion actually. I recently heard from someone discussing how they fell out of playing video games after they went 3D. They were stating something along the lines of, “… it crossed a border… sort of creepy how realistic it is.”
I think as we progress more and more into the future the uncanny valley is going to become more of a problem. Even if something looked exactly like a human, I think that if the viewer knew it was a fake, it wouldn’t matter how perfect it was, they’d still be creeped out.
I think the biggest danger with stylized animation is some people have the impression that it’s, “cheap,” and, “easy.”
Now I personally don’t have much experience with photorealism, but I must say trying to capture a unique style (or in my case trying to make something look flat) is very difficult as it requires quite a bit of knowledge on lighting and rendering effects. It probably doesn’t carry much in the direction of processing power, but it certainly does in terms of concept. At least I think, but like I said I’m not very well experienced with the process of photorealistic rendering.