I have always thought that the target market for Beyond/Incredible/etc was not vegetarians, but rather partners of vegetarians. They don’t really want to give up meat but they want to support their partner and/or avoid conflict.
My intention was not to suggest meat substitutes are strictly better than meat for losing weight, or reducing heart disease, general public health advice (I am not qualified to even make those comments!).
The scope I was hoping to address was situations where an individual needs to replace meat for their specific dietary requirements. In this case, meat substitutes may be useful if, say, there is something in meat causing inflammation for the individual.
This is largely "what-if" though, and would probably require a doctor's consult to confirm.
If you're vegan, eat whatever you want as long as it doesn't exploit an animal in any conceivable way.
Who cares about this uncanny fake-meats? Only people that exploit animals.
I've lived with dozens of other vegetarians, and I've heard the "I don't like fake meat" position a lot, but it's not a clear majority, and far from universal.
My grocery store sells five+ brands of fake chicken at this point, in addition to vegetarian burgers, fish, and sausage. There's very obviously a market.
It's really the same play as any technology, the first generation jumps the gun and strikes too early given their ambitions.
But someone's gotta be the Yahoo! It's a necessary step in the path.