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Pretend that all of the following is actually possible. I realize that in the real world, some of the combinations are mutually exclusive.

You meet the Ultimate Gamer. He or she is polite, well-groomed and generally likable and pleasant to know. They are expert in their game and know all the rules but not overbearing and handle disputes with easygoing good humor. They are always honest and never cheat nor do they ever try to seek out advantage outside the rules. They are humble in victory and graceful in defeat.

What does their army look like? Is it:

1) Beautifully modeled and painted, full of unique and creative conversions and scratch-builds.

2) Incredibly fluffy, perfectly matching either the story or historical background (as applicable) in its composition.

3) Amazingly powerful, using the most devastating combos that can be squeezed out of the rules.

or some combination of the above?

Looks first, fluff second, and if you fulfill those, rules can go to hell. If you're running the cheesiest list ever or something that will just die to a stiff breeze, I won't mind so long as it looks awesome.

This is also my view on my own army. Especially these days when I hardly get to play, I'm far more concerned with overall looks and fluffy details than the rules, which are little more than an afterthought.

Main thing is ...looking good

#1 and #2

You can look damn good without each model being an individual work of art. Just check out the photos in Hail Caesar/Bolt Action.

Looks first, fluff (or historical accuracy) second, and assuming it's a balanced enough game or an unbalanced scenario, then effectiveness/power should be irrelevant.

From the title, the first thing I pictured was a huge, well painted 28mm Persian Army, horse archers, Cataphracts, the lot, on a suitably themed board.

For me tabletop wargames are all about the aesthetics, if it was just power or fluff I could just play boardgames or video games, there's just something satisfying about the craft that goes into an army.

Perfect army for me would be a bunch of bases of various size that have a hologram technology that allows me to proxy any model any color any pose any weapons etc... I can play virtually any army no problem.

An almost perfect 3-way split between beautiful, beautiful and fluffy, and all three. I was expecting a result like this (in the sense that I was expecting a majority of people not to care about power).

Tbh, I've never understood that attitude. I'm a "fluff/story first" gamer but within those constraints, I always try to field the best-modeled and most powerful army I can muster. Even when the game system conspires against me, and the "fluffiest" army is weak, I still feel like I owe it to myself, my opponent and the whole nature of competition to try my best to win.