Some of those things listed will require a large hardware upgrade and network upgrade to work right.  When we have access to 20 GB/s connections then I am sure alot of those things can be done.  Like for having the terrain interact with you is feasible; but only on godly machines.  You can edit the BSP volumes to act like particle containers and when you hit one the particles move out.  Sounds cool; but is very taxing on a system.  Hopefully by 2015 we will see this in games.

I doubt any mmo's will incorporate voice chat until the network lines in America are upgraded.  Currently, only Korea and Japan would possibly incorporate voice chat into an mmo.  The reason being it would require the publisher to also host voice chatting; which can be more taxing on bandwidth then what the actual game uses without it.  Expect voice chatting via teamspeak for some time.

Really the future of mmo development lies in creating centralized engine development houses that make game engines specifically; then have other developers mod the engine for thier games.  It will centralize programming and get rid of alot of bugs.  It will also create a wider range of features in games.


On lacking aspect, I say variety.  So few classes; so few armor; so little land to explore; so little content.  We are starting to see variety increase with the next gen games or atleast the possibility.  Probably the greatest in Ragnarok Online 2 simply because of its gameplay features.  Also Hero's Journey brings alot of variation.  The character creation variety in Hero's Journey is huge, the system is kind of like Second Life only more asthetically driven; like they would take out the downright bad design choices that are pretty easy to get in Second Life, like bald spots.  Its alot like Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. 

I don't think we need anymore upgrades to graphics.  Right now is pretty you can pretty much achieve hyper-realism, so anymore really isnt necessary.  Normal mapping is incredible and all; but unnecessary.  The small details it adds usually aren't noticed and can easily be hidden in texturing.  It also doubles the time it takes to make a model.  I think greater emphasis should be made at creating more, and less on making the graphics look like the next huge thing.