If you can show me tools that let me make a AAA fancy pants character in the same timeframe as lowpoly stuff - about 2-3 days, then I'll hop on it. It's the weeks working on one asset that turns me off of AAA the most.
We're getting there but not quite 2-3 day turn arounds yet. But I do think we're getting pretty close to that point. The latest Zbrush Z-remesher lets you create your lowpoly in a matter of minutes after you have your high rez done. It's amazing! For texturing in next gen I think it's going to be a lot of material library…
We actually use Mari even for low-poly stuff (mobile platform). You can't use all it's advantages while doing so, but it's a nice tool to work with. It doesn't really support non-square textures to my knowledge, which is a pity, but you still can get around that by using squares - higher resolution and then squashing down…