Q: surely if you were able to somehow perfectly recreate the real world you'd have to draw  the line somewhere. does this question even matter or is it kind of automatically taken care of for the time being by time restraints?
A: with most things it's actually better to not go too close to realism. with humans, and especially human faces, it's REALLY REALLY important not to get very close to realism. i've done multiple experiments with even something as simple as just adding noses to my characters, and i found that even just that makes them more creepy and less relatable