"Lower triangle budget media" is what I wonder if its still a valid problem. Modern game engines coupled with modern hardware can already render insane number of triangles. It feels like the problem is rather in engines not handling LOD correctly (see city skylines 2), although stuff like UE5 nanite seems to have taken the right path here.

I suppose though there is a case for AI models for example doing what nanite does entirely algorithmically and research like this paper may come in handy there.

Lots of polys is bad for performance. For a flat object like a table you want that to be low poly. Parallax can also help to give a 3D look without increasing poly count.