Game design is limited by the technology of its time. Lara Croft's face was poorly defined, and her features were exaggerated partly because it wasn't possible to render an attractive quasi-realistic character before the first generation of 3D hardware. The renders shown in promos and cover art were done in much higher quality, and the Lara in those hardly resembled the in-game Lara either.
> That's like Nintendo deciding, after the 6th Super Mario title, that Mario should now look like a more realistic man and lose his big nose and his outdated hat. Or as if Capcom had decided, for Metal Gear Solid 3, to swap out Solid Snake for some other guy with the same name.
You're saying that Mario and Snake didn't also change from their initial 2D sprites to their later 3D models? Mario's nose and signature cap were hardly distinguishable in the early games, and just weren't important compared to the gameplay. Mario himself changed radically in each game; from Tanooki, frog and cat suits, to becoming other characters entirely in Odyssey. Snake's features only became visible in the first MGS, and the model in The Phantom Pain might as well be a different character. (It doesn't help that MG chronology is confusing as hell, and I'm not certain that "Venom" Snake is actually the same person as "Solid" Snake...)
The change of Lara Croft was certainly influenced in part by the zeitgeist, as you say, but it's largely the result of normal character evolution in most gaming franchises. Do you really expect a character to have a braid in all versions? And why is Lara's hair or physical proportions so important to her character? Her defining features are being an upper-class explorer and overall badass, which is part of every TR game.
This is a really good article, BTW. Kudos to the author!