You make very salient points. The situation is the same regardless of the industry, and it's been that way since the concept of advertising originated. I remember one of Exxon's ancient ads: Put a tiger in your tank. Translation, our gasoline will make your car run like an Indy car. It was no different than Amoco, Sunoco, Gulf or Pure petrol.
In the early 1960s, there was a petrol station in our town called 'Working Man's Gas'. They bought up the overage from the fuel tankers that had big names on the side: Esso, Shell, Amoco, etc. The petrol all went into the same tank, and you'd pay over 5 cents a gallon less ( petrol averaged 25c a gallon or less at the time ).
I also used Sears Spectrum branded SAE 30 and later 10W-30 motor oil because it was less expensive than the big brands, and it worked. Amoco was supposedly the supplier, but it wasn't until Mobil-1 came out that I was told (via advertising) that the 170ci 6 cyl in my 1963 Ford Fairlane would die unless I used Mobil-1. I still used Sears oil until I sold it in 1974, yet the engine and drive train were as solid as ever. My 1974 Volkswagen Super Beetle ran on NAPA brand 20W-50 ( supposedly Valvoline ) for over 30 years with no issues ever. My nephew bought the Bug @2005 and made a sand crawler out of it, and the engine and transaxle are still going strong albeit with a lot of mods. My 1992 Explorer ran for almost 300k miles on NAPA and Supertech 10W and later 5W-30. I sold it still running and not burning oil.
Having read MolaKule's home page writeup on oil processing (and pulling my head out of the blender), I can appreciate the GTL technology and the advantages it has. When on sale, I'll use Pennzoil Platinum. Otherwise it's whatever Walmart has on sale. I doubt my Jeep has noticed or ever will notice the difference.