I've had a very similar experience recently, I haven't been following games as closely as I once did. But I recently downloaded Mafia (game from 2002) and AS3 (from 2012). It's a really interesting comparison.
Mafia looks good, but obviously AS3 looks muuuuch better. It's pushing many more poly's, better lighting, shadows etc but it also runs much more smoothly then Mafia does. It's really cool to see just how much we have learned to optimise software as well.
I also regularly see real-time things in games which weren't even possible in 3d software yet when I started working with it. Man, technology makes me feel old sometimes...