Keep in mind when you're making things like fruit in that first picture is that it is just fruit and probably doesn't need a couple thousand of poly's. Even with something complicated like a pineapple or those other fruits people were talking about, all the detail can come from the texture and the model itself can be about 50 poly's. Yes, things are getting better where the game can handle millions of poly's and you can budget 1000 poly's for objects, but if you save 950 poly's on something simple like a pineapple, you can use that 950 poly's on something more important.
One of my old roommates who was working with Maya was so proud of himself when he made a screwdriver in 1800 poly's. I just kind of looked at him and told him that I would be fired if I did something that dumb.
Sorry, mini rant over...
Just to show you can do a lot with 50 poly's, textures, and they may look blocky up close but not in the game, here are a few examples:
Orange(48 poly's)
scene they're used in (only pictures I have of them in game that I have at the moment)
