3D vs 2D

Back when I first started programming, pretty much everything was 2D. Since then, I have seen the gradual 'infiltration' of 3D technologies, watching frame rates increase and approaching truly 'photo-realistic' images. 

I haven't done too much extensive development with 3D, although for my next project I may try tackling something fully 3D (or an online flash game). The reason for my resistance to 3D development is there seems to be so much extra work required, especially regarding content-creation. 3D models, textures, shaders, animations,etc. - everything seems to take much more time to develop, and performance is even more of a factor than before.

And in terms of interface, even some of the newer 3D games suffer from camera-rotation problems, or other annoyances that hinder gameplay. Also, even if the state-of-the-art 3D still isn't close to true 'photo realistic', we have along way to go there as well.

On the other hand, if you do everything right the cinematic enjoyment factor can be increased many fold. And in many cases you actually save development time and add an extra dimension of interaction of the game.

In any case, 3D is here to stay - but I still wonder if its possible for a one or two person team to make a better quality 3D game, when compared to a 2D game (given the same amount of time). 

A few months ago I spent a bit of time evaluating (free) 3D engines, but nothing seemed to work straight out of the box, and look pretty. Too much to expect, I guess. I'm sure if I pick one and work with it I can customize it to my needs, but comparing that to the ease-of-use of the Allegro library (mostly 2D) there is still a big gap.

Oddly enough, all of the unit and building graphics are first made in a 3D program (recently, Blender), and then rendered to 2D sprites. I have the feeling that if I had a good 3D engine that was easy to use, I could convert ARTSG to 3D in a few weeks time. But does that engine exist? 

Hmmm..