I'm for 1080p, no matter the costs, however it's pretty clear resolution is not going to matter to 99% of people who buy the next-gen consoles.
Depending on how well your TV can upscale the source material, you will likely end up with a very clean image on the screen anyway. My brother has a Panasonic LED TV and I'm surprised at how good games like Batman Origins and GTA V look on the PS3. These are 720p games mind you, and after playing 1080p on my PC for a couple of years, I expected the resolution to look like pure shit.
Oh, certainly by no means do 720p PS3 games don't look like "shit." However, I alternate between gaming on my PC at 1080p and my PS3, and the difference of true 1080p on my native 1080p HDTV is glorious. The Last of Us, for example, looks very nice; but even in that game the overall visual experience is somewhat ruined by the aliasing and edge shimmer. At full 1080p, aliasing (and sub-pixel shimmering caused by said aliasing) is far less of an issue, to the point where I can appreciate the beauty of the game without distraction.
The differences are more noticeable the bigger your TV is.