Why does the OP need to bring "facts" to the discussion when none were introduced anywhere else?

I think you're assuming that the options will be: "uber-super-ultra-premium intelligence" and then something like that but only slightly less so and much cheaper. Those aren't the only potential options. One other option is "uber-super-ultra-premium intelligence" and "nothing that really matters".

That seems to be the crux of the "open-weight" models versus "closed" models debate/discussion. I think it's more of a belief system being expressed than it is a reflection of any reality.

Open source software evangelists tend to have a quasi-religious viewpoint on the openness of software and that the model is superior and will always be cheaper and if not better only slightly worse, but because it's cheaper it's better. They will proclaim its universality, and apply it not just to web frameworks but to artificial intelligence, or state secrets, or anything else where there is some secret or knowledge to be held and maintained. If I were to say I think closed-source software is better and more preferable, open-source software evangelists will come out from all corners of the internet to make sure I know how impossible it is for security to be good on closed-source software, or how software yearns to be free or something. Then it turns into "the AI industry ... prefers to make claims about infinite exponential growth".

All of that is just a belief system. It's not scientific or factual. And it clouds judgement.