You are right and I agree, there is no secret that any dahs cam with lower bit-rate ( Panorama II have 12Mbps bit-rate) will have more chance to reproducing slightly more grainy / noisy image, it's not only Panorama2, but most others as well.
There are pros and cons regarding higher bit rate and it's only not because higher-bit rate "eats" a lot more data ( this is not priority concern for me personally ), there are much more to this, I will write thread about this in some stage.
As you mentioned:
"I realize it may capture more detail as a result, but it sure looks artificial and unattractive as it does so..." ...
Here is my question: are we shooting a Hollywood movie, or we need as much details at night as possible ? If chose first, then yes - Panorama II ( and most other dash cams ) are no good. If we need to record road-action details, then dashcams with low-light sensitive CMOS are the right choice, despite they do in majority cases have this ( as you mentioned ) 'foggy' or grainy or noisy effect. This goes to almost whole range of high-end dashcams.
Try to imagine scenario where you drive car on the streets with poor light and some scum-bag throws a stone from the side of the road. With high-bit rate dashcam ( which has less noise / "foggy" video effect ), but have average CMOS, - you will not catch an action, but with CMOS like Sony Exmor, AR0331 and other similar ones, - you do catch an action.
If someone thinks higher bit-rate will "guarantee" him more chance to record a car numberplate, then it is not true. Even dashcams with best combination of CMOS / FPS / bit-rate, will be struggling to record numberplates at night due to many factors, some of them I described
HERE.
So there are many priorities to consider when comparing dashcams. For some people having smooth video is more important than nigh recording sensitivity, for others is opposite.
As price per value I think all 3 models tested here are unbeatable at the moment in their own dashcam segment, but of course there are many other dashcams released time to time that might bring a competition to them in some stage. Let's wait and see