100% Agreed.
There are few mid-tier games that still
1) Take advantage of the hardware
2) Provide a unique, relatively non-iterative experience
3) Have a good amount of unlockables/content/new game plus.
People are completely missing these points.
PS2 alone had Chulip, Rule of Rose, Katamari Damacy, Mr Mosquito, God Hand, Ostatz, Mojib Ribbon, Graffitti Kingdom, Skygunners, Silpheed, Klanoa 2, the OG Disaster Report series, Frequency, and quite a few more quirky games that were able to take advantage of the hardware to provide an experience that couldn't have been completely done on the hardware of the last generation.
There aren't many true "indies" that couldn't have been released on the last gen consoles or much weaker hardware.
New Fresh First-Third Party IPs
What's also being missed here is that those games were being released alongside completely fresh or revamped IPs doing things we hadn't really seen before - PS2 has Ratchet and Clank, Sly Cooper, God of War, Grand Theft Auto III, Guitar Hero all released on it for the first time.
GameCube was absolutely flooded with new, amazing experiences - Animal Crossing, first person Metroid, Luigis Mansion, full featured Smash Bros, a bizarre Mario, a cartoon Zelda, Chibi-Robo, Pikmin, DK Jungle Beat with 3rd party games like the Capcom 5 and Super Monkey Ball.
To reiterate:
1) The PS2 era had multiple quirky, innovative, full-featured mid-tier games that couldn't have run on hardware from the previous generation.
We don't get this very often with console indie games.
2) A slew of completely new 1st-3rd party IPs or just an entirely different take on IPs OR a dramatically expanded version of previous IPs (Smash Bros.). The graphical upgrade from PS1 to PS2 was enough to make everything feel fresh.
These days, we are incredibly lucky to get new IPs, and when we do, it's typically an iteration of gameplay that we've seen before.
3) A massive graphical leap from generation to generation.
Those three factors combined made everything feel consistently fresh, full of crazy new ideas, and all around more exciting than modern console gaming.