I always find when they ask about graphics, the response very humorous. The fact that a previous producer made the outrageous claim that they would update the graphics, but it would take 5-8yrs to do. Not only was this almost five years ago that this was stated, but also nice way to badmouth your former colleagues, very professional. This was worked on for some time, and therefore whatever was created should have been put into the game.
But, lets ignore this and remember that there is already high resolution graphics for everything in UO - from the old Kingdom Reborn client. Instead of recreating everything from scratch, why not look over the years of feedback you got from that art work and modify it and reintroduce it. People didn't hate all of it, just parts of it. It would save a ton of time, effort and money and still result in a better looking game for everyone else.
And then there is the point about the item graphics, the game is almost 20yrs old, the classic client was created when the standard resolution was 640x480, but even in the Enhanced Client the item art work is absolutely tiny. Items hide inside each other, or are non distinct. There is absolutely no excuse that they have not either introduced the list item view to the classic client, or allow a zoom setting for the inventory so people can see their items. The basic usability and interface problems that both clients have is embarrassing to say the least.
I won't even get into the comment about the melee bar being set 'very high', in that unless you have a maxed out and very specific build they don't expect that you will even be qualified to do any of the new content in the game. That is at least what I got from it, the 1-2 word and typically hostile answers really don't clear anything up.
to the shard for all the good questions, well done.