Pretty much confirms what I expected, they are readying a political answer. Basically guys the engine doesn't run well with the high res textures enabled. That's why they have been reduced to poor quality outside of cut scenes. It's not a bug, it's a quick and dirty fix to a much bigger problem. If high res textures are on, over time the client likely becomes very unstable with memory leaks and bad performance, and/or possibly causes lag for other local players. Chances are this wasnt discovered until fairly late in the development / stress testing. That would also explain why high textures and AA were all enabled early on in the betas. There will be 2 options on the table behind the scenes. Either spend a significant amount of time optimising / rewriting the engine to compensate (bioware won't do this) or carry on with a stable engine and poor textures. Naturally for bioware the awsner is option 2, but they know that the player base won't like this - so now they have to word it very carefully to avoid as much back lash as possible. My guess would be that the next official response will include lines such as "making the game stable is our number one priority" and "we will be working on adding new and exciting graphical updates in the future". I will happily eat humble pie if I'm wrong, but some how I feel the force with me on this one and trust my instincts.
