I know
The problem is even in the 2019 trailer not everything was perfect. E.G. the trees looked like plastic, grass was blurry, units suddenly changed their direction, weapon proportions were unrealistic etc. Everything could look a bit more realistic. But I expected they would improve that until release. Instead of this they made the game look more cartoony and less detailed.
Seems like they had huge performance issues and decided to reduce graphics. That also could be a reason why they waited so long with showing us new gameplay.
Like you said some things clearly look better. Especially water looks much more natural. Worse than Aoe3 DE water, but definitely better than Aoe4 Beta water. What happened there? I don’t think this is just the work of video editing. Sth probably gone wrong.