no, you can't undermine the idea with this trick. For example (grabbing examples from other comments in this thread), while an expensive soldering iron might be much better than a cheap one, there is no way you know before you start whether you're going to be soldering a lot.
I know how to solder, I've soldered a lot since I was about 13, and I can solder just fine with a crappy soldering iron (just like good pizza makers can use a primitive wood fired oven) but after I learned to wire-wrap, I put down my soldering iron almost for good... and does wire-wrapping even exist any more? If I wanted to take it up again, I'd find antique wirewrapping tools before I'd torture myself with soldering anything. All of which is my way to say, if I can't predict how much soldering I'm going to do, then no beginner can predict whether an expensive soldering iron is what they need or not.
Maybe if you went out and geared up with the most expensive technical mountain climbing gear, you could climb Everest on your first try, and you could then make the case that had you bought the cheap stuff you would have been discouraged by frostbite. But that's just not a good plan.