The interesting thing is that S60 could have had similar graphics as standard by now if they'd kept fitting graphics hardware as standard on new models, which they did on the N93, N95 and N82 in 2006/2007. The original accelerated demo version of System Rush Evolution looked very good indeed, whereas the final non-accelerated release version played the same but was clearly not as good-looking.

I'm guessing the decision to use Maemo as Nokia's high end platform was made some time in 2007, because that's when Nokia inexplicably stopped including graphics hardware on S60 phones. The N82 was the last Nokia S60 model to have graphics hardware AFAIK.

Samsung has manufactured S60 phones with graphics hardware since then, including touchscreen S60 models, so it's clearly possible yet Nokia chose not to do any more, presumably because they had it in mind to focus entirely on Maemo devices for high end graphics, with S60 aimed more at mid-to-low range prices.