That is your perogative.
this misses key points by a mile
No, not really, it misses YOUR point perhaps. You are obviously a RAW and Post-Process fanatic.
you can't ignore a properly processed raw produces a far better image
I cant? Really? That's a pretty arrogant supposition, demanding that I MUST agree that your highly subjective and circumstance dependant opinion, is actually a universal and utterly 'true' fact, which, it simply isn't.
Because of the extra data that's captured - that IS wholly relevant and has nothing to do with 'snobbery'.
Again, in certain situations, and in your opinion.
Data remains Data, on it's own, it is meaningless and irrelevant unless it is used.
Your point - "'Data' is not 'information', it is the unprocessed 'facts' from which you might 'infer' something 'useful' which is the 'information'." Is fine for your weather forecast example, but not so much when it comes to image data where the relevance is vital.
Yeah, you keep insisting this extra data is absolutely and unequivocally essential.. WHY?
To offer suggestion why you believe this
a properly processed raw produces a far better image
Your comment reveals your very constrained ideas and practices within photography.
Did Van Gaugh have a 'Raw' file to produce his painting of the Sunflowers?
Is his image of lower quality or less intrinsic worth, because he used a paint-brush not a camera, let alone one not storing image data in RAW format?!?
It is very revealing of what you think important and what you think relevant and what you think vital, in
your photography, but no matter how useful or important you may find all this 'added data' to how you chose to make images, that does NOT make these aspersions unequivocal facts in every circumstance to every photographer or image maker!
What does this mean - "And ultimately you are going to end up looking at a paint by numbers 'display' image.... {snip}
It means exactly what I said.
Even in your editor, what you are looking at as the image you are editing is not data, or even the image instructions that a program has created from that data, it is the product, with however many layers of algorithmic processing performed to actually light up the individual pixels on your display screen.
What 'matters' is what you see.
And in post-process, you look at that algorithm made display image, and start changing it... adding or changing the instructions in the 'make' file to create the image you would like to be displayed.
IF you are going to 'make' your images in 'post-process', and your arguments imply that you do, and deem this a large part of where the image is made, you could, like Van Gaugh, create one entirely from your imagination on a blank canvas using a digital paint-brush to define the colour and brightness of individual pixels, without a camera, without any original capture data.
Does this make sense to you?
If you are 'making' your image in Post-Process, where you don't actually need to have taken a 'photograph', you don't need ANY original capture data the it is actually NOT important, or all that relevant, and even less relevant how much you don't have or what format it's saved in when captured!
You are not arguing for a file format, you are arguing to an entire approach and methodology in photography, and becoming ever more locked to the dogma of that methodology, ergo, post-process reliance.
If you enjoy that, if that works for you, then fine, BUT it is not the only way to make images, and the only place how much meaningless data you capture to play with in post-process has any relevance what-so ever, diminished further by how much you post-process, creating your now 'make file' for the display image.