I don't think he's talking about the pixellation of the details, I think he's talking about the long greyish streaks along the surface? Not sure though.
Those subtle artifacts would be pixels :D So yeah, aa and texture space are important factors here. AA can only do so much without ruining the details when you have too little texture space, but if you haven't tried it yet, that'd be a first step. edit: ah, the wisdom of opening a tab and posting in it a few hours later. I…