I used the word "nitpick" intentionally. I was referring to your point questioning whether "a zillionaire capitalist accepting a token amount of gold for performing unskilled labour represents a functioning market". This is the kind of arbitrary criticism someone comes up with when they're not interested in honestly understanding the author's message.

"The real purpose for Dagny's dinner with the tramp after all ... [is] for the tramp to lecture"

This is another example of your nitpicking. You know that I was not talking about that one particular scene, but illustrating that Rand has nothing against charity and she has many scenes in her novels where characters help people in need. That is, Rand does not teach "never help others", as you imply.

"And yeah, the symbolic nature of having to pay for everything rather than do favours is the heroes believe [in maintaining the illusion that] those deserving of their support are evaluated not as individuals but based on their ability to produce interchangeable tokens of past effort...."

And nope, you're still misunderstanding the message. The heroes are not asking who is "deserving of their support" then evaluating them "on their ability to produce interchangeable tokens". The heroes want to live by their own effort. Living with others who also want to live by their own effort makes life easier, because you can specialise and trade the products of your labour for the products of their labour. Production and trade are essentials of any human community, charity isn't, which is why there is no charity in the valley.