our church uses, having been picked by a former audio pro performer, mxl mikes which sound great and nobody has complained and afaik nobody has ever said they can hear some bump or dip or other artifact in the response
Well...I don't think that's really the point of what we do with music and audio.
If we all just focused on what the average listener hears or likes to hear...we should just stop all this recording stuff right now.
That's like saying why are people wasting their money on a BMW when a $15k compact gets them from point A to B the same as the BMW...etc.
We can go on and on with many other examples of higher quality/price VS lower, and where a lot of people would opt for the higher quality/price if they could, because it's worthwhile to them...so I don't know why that doesn't apply to audio, and I fail to see the relevance of "no one notices that I used a $59 mic".
IMO, we can't compare what we do and why... with that which the general public hears, sees and understands.
I don't know where other people work from...but I don't look at this as simply trying to reduce everything down to the lowest/cheapest common denominator.
It's like once a month this similar discussion gets churned up in the home rec world...some sort of indirect (or even direct) denial of anything that costs more than a few hundred bucks, as being hyped and unnecessary, or something like that...and it's always coming from the point of low/no budget perspectives, which is a self-serving argument.
Everyone would buy a Neve console...IF...they won the lottery...but because they can only afford a $59 USB mic...then the need for expensive, high-end gear is all just a myth for the most part.