This is why I prefaced my comment with the old man bit. There is a lot of exaggeration in my comment.

My experiences has been that meat substitutes marketed as such are usually chuck full of spices, ultra-processed and just taste bad on their own. 95% of the recipes I make with meat, I often replace with a vegan alternative protein.

I do think that vegan brands try to appeal to a lot of meat eater and lean hard on the green/healthy marketing, but it has been played out and abused by marketing and doesn't mean much anymore. Just market the products on their own merits.

There is so much good vegan food out there, but it's often branded as the X alternative. IMO, it hurts the product because it pidgeon hole it in that comparison.

But your points are entirely valid, and my point are really just an uneducated opinion without backing data. I just know that I avoid vegan products marketed as meat alternative to X because they taste terrible 99% of the time.