it is the wow effect really, not your graphics setup.
if your used to wow, then your pretty much used to a 'vibrant' colourful environment, with lots of scenary to draw your attention, it seems cartoony to those going from swg to wow, but only at first, wow is actually a lot more detailed than swg is, but swg is using a fairly old graphics engine, its 3 years old after all, and compared to modern games the swg environment is rather drab and lifeless by comparison. perhaps they'll do a graphics revamp too, it probably needs one anyway.