misinformed or inexperienced?
I have had over 25 years of very serious experience with Sm57s. they are the most road wrothy microphone made, without exception! They have excellent signal response and fantastic tone quality. they are very sweet for voices, and can handle just about any instrumental application you want to throw at them (within reason). I have used them for accoustics (guitars, pianos, horns and reed instruments) and vocals both in live concerts and in the recording studio. I have seen a pair of SM57s bounce down a 2 story set of concrete stairs, and be in use on stage within the hour, without a problem. A black felt marker covered the only scratch on the side of one, from a person trying to help by stepping on it at the bottom of the stairs.
And as for the sweat shop comment, not only are you wrong, you're being rude and slanderous.