I prefer realistic games, but thats just my opinion.
There is just no reason stylized textures would be better than realistic ones. It would be great if it only took a picture to make good textures these days. I can hardly grasp how narrow your view as a dev must be if you dont agree with me on that. No offense 
Games are for players and only the end result counts for them. Your effort as a texture artist is invisible and doesnt make a texture better by default.
Besides that, real life is a limitless source of inspiration. Games that use real life as a reference IMO usually have more depth than games that dont. The whole reason FPS and other games are enjoyable is because they manage to simulate some things from reality, such as physics, view of depth, believable guns, and those stylized textures you prefer... you probably like them because it has realistic shading on em. Even AI is a simulation of real life. Games are still barely doing this enough imeho, but crysis doin a good job
congrats 
