Richard Carrier comes to mind as making counterintuitive claims about the efficiency of meat vs plant food: http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/87/
Interesting...
Just one quibble: “other than pure aesthetics (“I just like it”) ... which are idiosyncratic (i.e. not true for most people)” sounds like a overwhelming exception to me. Given that I've never met anyone trying to convince other people to become vegetarians (though I've read a couple such people), I guess that's by far the most common reason. (I've eaten meat in front of at least a dozen different vegetarians from at least four different countries, and none of them seemed to be bothered by that.)
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, even in Discussion, it goes here.