That's exactly how I felt about that . i was excited when I saw Double Dragon IV on Steam and then watched the preview video and thought WTF, why use NES Double Dragon models when the arcade was so great? Agree fully on Shovel Knight too, man that game is epic the way they worked in lots of things like Scrooge McDuck's cane attack from DuckTales or the Ninja Gaiden style story cutscenes. Shovel Knight is such an unbelievably great and timeless game. Though I doubt they could have ever made that game on NES, the graphics look a little more Super NES level.
I have never tried Double Dragon Neon, thanks for the recommendation. I love games in that style. I just picked up a copy of this beat em up called Dragon's Crown that looks incredible, but it's only on PS3. I can't wait to check it out tomorrow.
Did you ever play the Shinobi arcade game from 1987? That's another epic old-school arcade game if you liked the original Double Dragon. You can play that flawlessly on MAME, and can probably get the Shinobi rom from emuparadise.me. I know it's on XBox Live also if you have a 360 or XBone.