I'd freely grant your point about the zyl. But the rest of your response is somewhat motte-and-bailey fallacy to me. For instance, I never maintained that there are "low quality plastic lens blanks." What I was getting at is that for a lot of consumers, the polarized Bausch & Lomb glass lenses are superior in quality and a better experience than the cheap plastic lenses. I also never, at any point, maintained that I'd "expect high-quality prescription lenses from a frame manufacturer." My comment was framed (pun intended) in terms of off-the-rack, non-Rx sunglasses which was absolutely clear from what I said above.
And your claim about the hinges is simply laughable. I'd dare you to stress-test (in the R&D sense) the old five-barrel bolted hinges against these cheap spring hinges. That's a Pepsi challenge I'd be willing to take any day. Incidentally, as I mentioned above, I have a pair of 1984 Ray-Ban Wayfarer IIs that are a few months away from being exactly 40 years old, and as I said they look and function like new even though they've been worn constantly for decades. Trying to maintain that the spring hinges Luxottica uses on today's Ray-Ban branded sunglasses are "high quality" completely destroys the force of your argument.