I find this whole discussion a bit puzzling, and dominated by a false dichotomy, to wit: Either you must think all guns that go bang are of equal utility, or you must regard all guns below X price point or quality level to be garbage.
I think your insisting on a dichotomy is unrealistic as there are varying criteria that anything from a gun to a tool (we'll get into that analogy in a moment) have to meet. I love my .22's, for example, but the finest .22 LR rifle in the world isn't going to drop big game. Or medium size game. A given gun, or anything, for that matter, must be judged solely on how it meets all criteria of the particular use to which it is being put. Does it do the job for which it is obtained successfully? Does it meet all/most/some of the criteria. Some guns that have a low price point might very well meet the purchaser's needs in all areas, in which case it is a better gun for them because it saves them money while accomplishing their goal, meeting that need.
I'm not a contractor or construction worker. I do some odd jobs around the house. I need, for instance, a drill. I need it to work the 6 times a year I get it out, and I need it to hold onto drill bits, and I need it to make them go round-and-round in a clockwise fashion. I have a Ryobi drill that I got fairly cheaply at Home Depot. It does this. Because of my level of skill/involvement/usage, that's enough for me.
I own a Ryobi drill as well. And a Makita and a Black & Decker.. Why three drills, you ask? Well, the Ryobi is cordless, so that's handy, the Makita is corded but also is a hammer drill. The Black and Decker is a big old 1/2" corded drill that is great for mixing the occasional 5 gal. Home Depot bucket of stucco/concrete/plaster for whatever little home project I might have. Mixing mud would burn out the Ryobi and the Makita, but they're all drills. Each of my drills whirs and spns the chuck, but they aren't of equal utility. Price has nothing to do with it, so it's not an either/or based on only two deciding factors.
If someone wants a gun that goes bang and generally stabilizes the bullet, and feeds a new round from the magazine the vast majority of the time, then there are a lot of guns these days that will meet that criteria. The list of guns that will perform, or support user's performance, at higher levels is shorter... and tends to have higher average prices. I don't think it's an either/or choice.
No, a Hi-Point is not the equivalent of an SVI, or even a Sig. If it were, nobody would buy the more expensive guns, or at least not in sufficient volumes for the makers to stay in business. But it might be adequate for the person who just wants to have "a gun" in a "real caliber" that could be used to fire a few rounds in a dire emergency. And if money is tight, good enough is good enough.
The problem is the imprecision of the English language in fine. "Cheap" used to refer to low price only, but many things that were cheap were also of low quality, not just lower quality in comparison to a high quality item of the same type.
Let's take Hi Point as an example, they are inexpensive, not as well made as many guns costing more, especially in fit and finish, however for the purpose for which I recommend them at the shop (nightstand gun) they are better than a SIG, S&W or even a Taurus because they meet the owner's needs. A gun in X caliber that will reliably go bang when they hopefully will never need it. I also tell people that a defensive firearm is most like one other purchase a person could make, a fire extinguisher. It's something you buy that you hope you will never need to use. I don't target shoot with my defensive firearms, I have other guns better suited to that purpose.
I agree completely with your closing thoughts, good enough is good enough. I didn't buy any of my guns to impress someone watching me shoot them at a range. I do admit to buying and carrying the Anaconda at work because I want to impress the heck out of any orc that might want to try to rob the pawn shop, maybe urge them psychologically to go elsewhere or to maybe give up the idea of being an orc at all and go honest.
