Oh how I wish this wasn't the case! I feel so defeated when it comes to interactive sidelines.
Glorious Arc you are correct, there are a lot of 'clones' throughout the crowd and sidelines. They do actually animate during the play, but sometimes the camera guys and other random 'non players' animation data isn't saved into the replay (this is because of memory constraints...RAM, not HD).
As I think everyone is well aware, EVERY company that moved to 360 / PS3 went nuts on graphics. Well when the planning was done for graphical level of detail here at Tiburon, it was done to get the a.) absolute maximum amount of detail on 22 players on the field and b) insanely high-res stadiums. Extra characters really weren't considered because the player detail was so important, which is why it's been so hard getting new stuff in. That's why you haven't seen coaches in realtime on the sideline, or refs or chain gang either. All the initial planning and asset creation for the transition was done for 22 guys (at 30fps btw)...so it's been extremely difficult to make big global reductions as well as maintain 60 fps. Also, now that people are used to the visual fidelity of the game, we would take a lot of heat if the game started looking much worse graphically. I only wish that we had accounted for like 50 full-res guys.
APF2k8 decided to reduce the overall quality on their players, stadiums, environments, etc a little bit in order to have 22 EXTRA full-res players on the sidelines (instead of basic low-res clones). That's how they got the really killer interactions where the players catch you or you roll them over or whatever. I loved those...and no, those won't be in Madden NFL 10.
Personally (and I am not expressing the opinion of anyone else or of my employers), I'm of the mindset that MORE fully interactive characters = more immersion and "wow moments" to the user than having insane detail with fewer characters. Case in point - Dead Rising:
I really could care less what the graphics look like when I truly feel 100% immersed in that world (and in the story) because there are always 800 zombies around. I think NBA 2k has done an amazing job here as well - the guys get up for subs, the dude comes out and mops, and it's all realtime (they do have the luxury of a relatively tiny environment and only 10 players in the action at once though too).
So what do you guys think? As we move to the future, what is more important to you? Would you rather have the extra details (like the holes in the jerseys), or much less details on the players and the environment and more extra characters (that animate in a smarter manner) around the playing field? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.