I think this is a really good point. It's true that indie games are often simple, and don't use complex graphical features. But it's also true that a lot of them are startlingly memory-heavy and poorly implemented - they're comparable to AAA performance, but for a vastly simpler task. Every so often something like Dungeons of Dredmor will bog down on me despite being a very basic task on a high-end machine.
I don't object to that, either. People are knocking out games in high-level languages or using extremely rich frameworks. You can put out an Android game and barely touch a single Android feature because your environment is so extensive. We do pay a price in speed and memory usage, but the upside is that people get to release all kinds of wild projects without learning the arcana of their environment.
It's fantastic that a team of <5 people with limited software expertise can put out a genuinely brilliant game. I'm less happy with it outside of gaming, where people often have to standardize on a single product. But video games are moving steadily closer to boardgames, novels, and other art forms where the tools of the trade aren't a limiting factor.
