I can tell you from experience: Nobody cares.
Not about you or your post, I don't mean it like an attack, I mean that nobody really cares about the stuff they say they care about in regards to all of this.
Beyond gaming, people in general are never to be trusted with what they say when you can watch what they do.
Me, personally, I love hand-drawn stuff and having grown up through the onset of computer technology, I actually prefer the imperfections. But me as an individual, I am not the market and I am not a target audience.
If this were true--if people spent their money accordingly--then the AAA gaming industry would never have risen in the first place and it certainly wouldn't still be around today. Nor would Disney, or Paramount, or Apple Iphones. How many people abhor slavery but buy Apple products? Or abhor native population displacement but still buy Coca-Cola? It isn't even a secret, the horrors are well-documented for anyone to look up.
If you have come to this realization naturally, then good on you. Stick with it--but know it means a slow and painful journey that no one but you will actually care about. However, if any part of you feels like you are navigating a hostile environment--then my only advice is to ignore the people that rage at you and do whatever it is you do best.
The guy who stuck with his flip-phone when everyone else switched to smart phones was "edgy" back then. Today, they are nothing but a total annoyance and anyone who even tries to live like that boxes themselves out of almost all productive channels in society.
And to anyone who thinks you can just AI your way into a full game--I doubt they have actually tried. AI can produce images and those images may even look good... but are they useful? That's where the editing comes in. AI does not replace the work--it transforms it. You still have to put in work, or it comes out as "slop".
There is no "free lunch".