Pfft. Explained the situation where? By you in that post?
It's not about CPU power but just about time. I guess you could go without post-processing and all that jazz and end up about even with the 3D in regards to dev time, but what's the advantage then over just using the 3D scene as is...
And yeah, I have. Whatever that's supposed to be worth, never specifically done 2D images out of 3D renders. Now go quote anything that says 2D pre-rendering is a time-efficient method of making graphics.
lol, "go quote something". Have you missed a decade of lamentations by developers about the rising cost of games as they are forced to create higher quality 3D assets?
You are completely ignoring the entire content pipleline. When rendering for 2D you set the camera in the position you want and lighting where you want it and it is done. You drop the complete image into the assets folder and use it as a background. If it is going to take a long time you set it to render on a different machine. A designer paints a quick mask for it representing the area the player is blocked by.
In 3D you have to create all the same pieces as 2D, except you also have to do the following, which is time consuming:
-make sure the models fit polygon restrictions
-make sure the models look good from every angle
-adhere to texture size restrictions
-export the models and textures through your content pipeline and import them into your level editor
-generate and check the low-poly mesh for collision detection
-place the completed pieces in the level editor (which is almost always slower than placing them in the 3D program)
-design your levels and set pieces so that you can never see anything of consequence in the distance and hallways have detours in the middle of them to cut draw distance
-limit usage of foliage and water
The only place this ends up saving you time is when it comes to animation and characters that change their appearance by more than a palette swap. Creating the 2D equipment system that blizzard did for Diablo 2 is complicated and prone to small errors.