There are multiple criteria for "visual excellence" and the one these forums and hobbyist discussions focus on are photographer oriented technical details such as resolution, pixel level performance, frames per sec, high ISO noise etc. This new camera creates lots of interest for those people who judge photography in those terms.

The vast majority of people could not care less about any of that. They see a photo, printed or displayed at human scale and either like, don't or are indifferent. Why they like a photo or why they feel some emotion when viewing it has nothing at all do with technical characteristics of the creation of the image itself, only the content.
Compelling, interesting photo images have been attainable for 16 decades so I suppose the perfect cameras have been around that long. Same with paintings. New brush materials or pigments are discussed in detail by painters but their audiences have not cared for 1500 years and have very different criteria for what moves them.
If photographers spent more time in art and photo galleries they would be a little less concerned with some of the technical points and more about the content. For example, I am never tempted to use a magnifying glass to evaluate a painting despite seeing great paintings, great masters, every week several times and see very little difference in ancient versus modern technology in art hardware. The exact same things that make a painting worth seeing and being moved by, are present in photos that are worth seeing. In both cases technology is for the insiders to discuss, not the viewers. But the viewers are the ones who really determine the value or significance of a work.

So yes, the perfect hardware has been here for a very very long time....
Stan
St Petersburg Russia

Visit my Nikonians gallery.