Boats,
You assume that all salesmen and advertisers are created equal, which they aren't. Some are idiots and their customers pay the price. Have you ever seen an engineer sell his own product? Its not pretty (and I'm an engineer mind you).
You also assume a well informed consumer. To the well informed consumer salesmanship becomes transparent and it becomes a matter of taste and choice. However the average consumer is by definition not the well-informed consumer (since "average" is less than "well" and potentially very much less if the population skews towards "poor"). So we get back to salesmanship and business acumen being as important as innovation and technical merit.
As for the rest, yes a man's choice of weapon is important. But on a more day to day level so is his car. How many people do you know that chose their car solely based on its styling without regard to performance/reliability/etc? And they drive that every day and bet their lives on it in foul weather or bad neighborhoods just as much as on any handgun. Do you honestly think the average shooter (keeping mind that you are an above-average shooter) really looks into their firearms all that much? How many guns have you seen for sale with less than a box of ammo put through them? Its not that uncommon and it should tell you something about a lot of shooters.
If you want more down to earth examples read about early repeating arms inventors. Spencer had a great product that went nowhere after the war because Spencer couldn't sell it on his market despite its successful war record. Winchester didn't have too much trouble selling his guns though, and he was
shirt maker who didn't know anything about guns. Remember the name of the guy that invented the bored-through revolver cylinder? I can't, but I know the nature of his contract with S&W bankrupted him with legal fees despite the fact that he held the most important handgun patent of the late 19th century. There are probably whole books written about inventors who didn't have the business ability to sell a superior product.
I'm not knocking a 1911. I've shot them. I like them. I shoot them better than anything else I have found yet and I am planning to buy my first shortly. But take a good look at the gun for second. There are reasons more recently designed firearms don't use the plunger tubes, toggle links, and locking lugs of the 1911 design. There are reasons (other than patents) JMB didn't design many of these parts into the hipower. The 1911 makes for a great enthusiasts gun. You can take it apart and, with some kitchen table smithing, trick it out to your tastes. Barrel lock up a little loose? Drop in an oversized toggle link or a tighter spec bushing to get it where you want it. Many of those additional parts that add to the fitting and machining cost of a 1911 are part of the guns inherent charm. This is what will keep the 1911 in the handgun market for the next century when newer designs have come and gone. Its a great gun to shoot and a great gun to work on as a professional or amateur.
But for a service weapon, the 1911 is unfortunately outdated. Lots of 1911s don't work properly out of the box. Granted its a small percentage of the population, but you really don't hear the same complaints about Glocks (or Sigs or HKs) for instance. I don't like Glocks much, but their market is huge and relatively unskilled in comparison to the 1911 market. Yet, aside from the occasion KB! with reloads, you rarely hear about a glock owner who can't get their gun to work properly or has trouble with reliability and/or poor accuracy. As much as I dislike their ergonomics and trigger, this is to their credit.
I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens to the 1911s cult status when the AWB sunsets and new hicap handguns become marketable in the US again. I think the whole 1911 industry is going to have a bit of a shakeup.