Would you call him or her "the next step in the evolution of the brush" or something like that? Would you call an assistant who reads from books to or for you the "next level of literacy"? Does objecting to such statements -- because they're false and insulting the intelligence of the reader on the surface, and outright sinister in their long term implications -- mean I am "anti" either of these or other things?

No x3. It also doesn't mean that I think if you have taste, even maybe some artistic skill, you will instantly lose it all when you hire that one person for that one logo, and so on. It just means what it says, that this comparison is nonsense. I don't have to justify myself for recognizing that, it should be the other way around if anything.