Gritty realism vs sewage truck rampage

I remember when Saint's Row was originally announced as a launch title for the Xbox 360, and the cries of "Copycat" were heard across the internet. For the most part they were right, Saint's Row (and it's sequel) was a crime-themed, vehicular-based, sandbox game. It actually pioneered a couple of new ideas though, some of which GTA incorporated into the fourth iteration of their game (the GPS system while driving), and some that they need to, (the ability to restart from a checkpoint being the glaring one for me).
I was playing a bit more of The Lost and Damned last night, and it was very frustrating to restart missions over again with no body armor, and all your ammo at the level it was when you died. I guess I'm looking for a quick-load type situation, which I use extensively in my PC gaming.
Much has been said about the tone of GTA 4 versus Saint's Row 2, the basics being that GTA 4 took a more mature, realistic approach, while SR2 went to the exact opposite extreme. I think there's room for both, I enjoyed the gritty characters and disturbing darkness Grand Theft Auto 4, and Saint's Row 2 had huge potential for pure immature fun.
It may be telling that I own GTA 4 and have only rented the Saint's Row series so far. With so much hype around the release of Grand Theft Auto, I ended up picking up the day of release, but I do feel that I was slightly disappointed with it overall. It was an excellent game, but I couldn't help feeling like I'd been there before. Once again, it's hard to go back to the magic I felt upon seeing GTA 3 for the first time. This particular problem will be the subject of a much longer post, I'm sure. We'll call it the "Morrowind Effect".