In a way, the limitations of those machines made the data representation so cool. These days everything is a flat raster buffer with every pixel being independently settable. It's incomparably more convenient but also more "boring". Same thing with music and audio, we have enough RAM to waste to let Nyquist-Shannon take care of the problem. I guess the lesson is boring = better?
Yes, imposing restrictions can result in awesome and creative art! E.g. using a small (e.g. 16-color) color palette for pixel art, making art using semi-graphics block characters, music with mod trackers, ...