I also disagree with the OP about cost vs. quality. The key difference comes later when you're managing the artist. If the artist has talent then they also have a certain amount of leverage in the relationship. If you make them feel like a slave then they have an ultimate trump card: turning off the juice. (The "Atlas Shrugged" maneuver?) A talentless piece of meat plus auto tune gives you total leverage, which means risk mitigation and a more controllable product.
Right now the environment in the music industry is one of extreme risk aversion, which is something you see when the bottom falls out of an industry. You've arguably seen a much more risk-averse tech industry since the 2001 crash.
I think my points about piracy fit into a broader critique of the concept of "free" that I've been thinking about and that I've heard others talking about. Unlike previous critiques it's more of a liberal/progressive critique.
Top40 music is palatable to many and is the exact result of what you describe: practice, research, focus, coaching, and peer review on a massive financed scale that "startup" bands could never afford.
Yet despite that, the indie music scene has never been more vibrant and alive than it is today. Instead of a small number of bands/groups producing music that all indie fans like, there's a huge pool of artists each producing their unique sound based on their own personal values of how music should be produced (including things like practice, focus, peer review, and other things not mentioned like experience, personality, and culture). That, to me, is art -- not a rehearsed manufactured production but an embedded experience unique to the artist you are listening to. That's what you heard in popular music until the mid nineties. The lack of quality popular music is not due to lack of craftsmanship.