But there's a stark difference between optimization like culling, occlusion planes, LOD-s, half-res rendering of costly FX (like AO) ~~and using a crutch like lowering the rendering resolution of the whole frame to try and make up for bad optimization or crap hardware.~~

There is not a stark difference if you were to describe the techniques objectively and not twist it to what you feel they're like.

There are so many steps in the render pipeline where native resolution isn't used. Yet I don't here the crowd complaining about shadow map size or how reflections are half res. Upscaling is just another tool that allows us to create better looking frames at playable refresh rates. Compare Alan Wake or Avatar with DLSS with any other game without DLSS and they will still come out on top.

DLSS has it's place for 150...200€ entry-level GPU-s trying to drive a 2.5k monitor, not 700€ "midrange" cards.

Just because you're unhappy with Nvidia's pricing strategy doesn't mean you should slander new render techniques. You're mixing two different topics.