The problem is that 258 some-odd people, out of the what, several tens of thousands of people who have experienced this issue is not a "clearly" situation.
That's, conservatively, about .1% of owners experiencing a problem, and it is entirely within reason to believe the issue is user-caused, baring some reproducible test case.
... In addition of course to all the ones experiencing this effect after using a tee shirt, tissue, paper towel, or other cloth. The guy you’re responding to definitely shouldn’t be using a paper towel to clean the screen.
Still though, that doesn’t cause a problem with most other Apple laptop/phone/tablet displays, so people who now have scratched up screens didn’t ever expect this could happen, and weren’t trying especially hard to be careful about it. Apple should at the very least do a much better job warning their customers.
What grounds do you have for believing that web reach is an accurate estimator for this problem?
Why are you using a paper towel? I've always considered them to be moderately abrasive.
There is very clearly a problem with the screen coating on a (in my case) $3500 machine, and Apple needs to be called out on this one. Bravo to the OP for bring this to light.