Me either. I'm not a vegan or vegetarian or anything. I do know some vegetarians who are also pretty confused about the imitation meat stuff. It is these companies coming up with these products, not the potential customers -- clearly the companies have customers, but their products aren't necessarily universally beloved, right? Maybe they just assume that creating a good replica of a popular meat product will result in a popular vegan product?

I wonder to what extent the customer base of these products is mostly curious people who are just dipping their toes in, not quite ready to take the plunge into veganism/vegetarianism. Or well-intentioned parents/friends who want to include vegans in things like cookouts?

I dunno. I'll observe that people who've successfully been vegan for a long time (the kind of recurring customers you'd presumably want) have been following their dietary restrictions that whole time, I guess they don't have an overwhelming hankering for bacon or whatever. But then I guess they are hard to address, if they are already happy!