The recent conversation about sculpts made me wonder what people look for in sculpts.
As someone that collects both realistic and stylized sculpts, i think i look at shapes more than the proportions. For instance I am easily willing to overlook tail length but have a hard time accepting a blocky mouth. I think this is why the SD (super deformed) style works and is generally accepted, because the character still has all the features and shapes of the original, just with different proportions.
I think textures are important too, but poor textures can be overcome by a good paint job.