[pastrami_panda]

It's not quite as easy as slapping on a good physics engine and call it a day.

A good integration with a decent physics engine feels better in-game than a superb physics engine with a bad integration.

When programming physics there's many ways of getting the desired behavior from the physics system, and as with all problem solving some solutions are better/more stable than others.

[arketyp]

I don't doubt there are compromises being made. I guess I'm just a bit surprised that immersion via realistic physics isn't in higher (and competing) demand. It also seems to me there could be a lot of interesting gameplay mechanics to explore there.

[Jensson]

There just isn't enough talent to make those games. People who are both good at programming and physics are very rare, and without them you are unlikely to produce programs that can use the physics system in reliable enough ways.