very true - and it makes sense.

but at some point you'd have to eventually explain (prefferably with reputable scientific arguments) to the "dummy consumer" that he loses nothing by using ... lossy ...

just some nine years ago, the performace of the CD format was discussed looking upwards (NOT downwards) and quite scientifically I presume in papers such as this :
http://www.Meridian-audio.com/w_paper/Coding2.PDF

now, where do we really stand ? do we really care ?

these are questions that one can really only answer for himself. I am quite glad we can openly discuss them here, even if sad that we have found cause to do this.

M kit : G08 502 557 507 2xDSP5k