I'm just waiting for somebody smart to convince the AI to sell services worth millions for pennies. Like researchers/reporters did with the AI vending machine.

What if the scientists are satisfied with their wages and are mostly looking to save the environment, not get rich?

Woolite isnt that special.

Why not both? Cut down on plastic pollution and make a bunch of euros? This research work isn't free, after all.
Besides, patenting is a way to keep control, prevent somebody else from parenting, gain name recognition, etc... free and low cost licensing is a thing.

It is more complicated than that. It looks to work closer to a commercial desalination plant, in that the filter does have a way to flush solids out without manual cleaning or replacement.
Think like a baleen whale. Solids end up going down the throat, while filtered water is distributed out the side.

We're not killing the fish exclusively for their swim bladder though, we're eating the rest of it.
It would be like how many consider cow leather for clothing more acceptable than mink fur pelts. We're at least eating the rest of the cow, using the leather for clothing is just maximizing use.

No love for wool? Silk? Other natural fibers like Hemp?

There's a number of reasons, but the primary one would be that we've concentrated the immune compromised there. There's just more people with weaker immune systems available for exposure.
Plus, by sterilizing everything, a bug that can survive said sterilization better will have essentially an open field to propagate in.
In addition, such environments tend to be less sterile than promised.

My first thought was that if it was microscopic structural cracks that enough dust just finally accumulated around and in the cracks to provide an effective seal like a clogged air filter.
But it does say that they did deliberate sealing activities, so I wonder what those were, if they did anything beyond spraying "germetall-1"

Remember, the proposal here is not to 'take care of'. It is to eminent domain, condemn, and tear down the houses and other buildings.
Therefore, it is not perpetual government largesse, which would be closer to the federal government subsidized flood insurance program, which when I researched it often forced flood victims to rebuild in the exact same spot as before, without so much as lifting the replacement something like a foot above the last flood level.
The issue here night be if, say, I got wind of the program, found a cheap place, buying it from a foreclosure sale, counting on it being part of the buyout to get myself a better property.
Maybe I do some absolute minimum cost 'upgrades' to increase the footage and feature count.
Still, this could be addressed in various ways, like requiring residency(actually living there), or prorating depending on time owned. Like less than 1 year is the lower of purchase price or replacement cost, 10 years is replacement.

Only if you count middle class retirees and such as rich. There are probably a few rich people, but not 1200.

Personally, so they have incentive to actually move, I'd go with replacement. IE if you have a 1500 sqft 3 bed 2 bath place, they pay the median for a habitable 1500 sqft 3 bed 2 bath. Without any modifiers for 'waterfront' or such.
Concentrate on the cheaper properties first, the multimillionaire mansions can fend for themselves.

That might actually be better. Remember, this was testing new technology, failures are to be expected. Russia would actually be suspicious of it being faked if it goes perfectly, because that is what they'd do.
Now the question is how fast things can be fixed. Many of the failures weren't actually critical, fixable with minor revisions.

In this case, it's along the lines of "Those who wish for peace; prepare for war".

By conducting public testing like this, it demonstrates that we have the capacity, that we are not slacking off, and this reduces the chances of us needing to use said capacity.

Same idea behind deploying with NBC protective gear and smallpox vaccines - if anybody gets any ideas about using that stuff, well, we're nominally ready for them, reducing the benefit of even trying.

Everything I've seen says that the DoD would really prefer our opponents don't open that particular can of worms.

It could be considered both not an extensive problem - in that most purchasers could do it, and not an expensive problem - $800-1k, with deeper discounts available for those able to do the work themselves.
I've read of people doing without the level 2 charger, and just charging using either a 110V outlet (cripple charging) if they average less than ~30 miles/day, using an extension cord from the dryer outlet, and more.