That said, another thing which plays a big role in the resulting pressure is the design of the brewing head and the design of your basket. Baskets can be either pressurized (they have a single hole through which the coffee will flow) or non-pressurized (they have a lot of small holes through all of which coffee will flow). You can imagine that the resulting pressure will depend on the type of the basket you're using.
Because cheaper appliances will by default use pressurized baskets, they will tweak the pump to some pressure level which they found to work the "best" for their type of machine and that level is exclusively much more than expected 9-10 bars. Nespresso will for the same reasons do the same with the difference that they make one step forward to take over the full control over the puck preparation process through their prepackaged pods.
Espresso machines without OPV are really a minority. Even single-boiler entry level machines like the Gaggia Classic or the Rancilio Silva have an OPV.
Gaggia Classic is a 350 EUR machine whereas Rancilio Silvia is 600 EUR machine. These are not entry level machines. They are entry level for someone becoming more interested in espresso but not for ordinary people. And ordinary people do not spend 400-500 EUR for a coffee machine if they think they are going to get the same for twice less money. Twice less money machines do not have OPV.
Yes they are. To put some perspective, my current machine (Bezzera BZ10) costs about $1,700 USD and it's not even close to being a high end machine.
Respectfully, you don't know what you're talking about. Even the Delongi Dedica, which is at the bottom end of espresso machines, has an OPV valve.
That high pressure causes some odd taste notes and it would cause channeling in the puck. Not to mention all sort of other issues which start already at ~11 bars.
I found this article interesting because they talk about the complexity of espresso as being characteristic of a mix of extractions at different pressures. This is apparently different than the model they came up with to brew the perfect espresso. But they also note that 9-11 bars is too high and go as low as 7. Fascinating.
I strongly believe that the Nespresso was designed to solve/create a problem to fit their business model.
In this order: Proprietary, good margin, small foot print (pods and extraction unit), easy to use, disposable.