I have to agree to many things you say e.g. the car being noisy and audio being much distorted (it's mainly the car's DAC though). But again, why do *other* people have to decide what *I* hear. I really don't get this?
In my personal opinion > 99% are used to compression, don't listen to real physical classical instruments daily, and just don't care. Or maybe their ears are trained to filter out the artifacts, the human brain is truly amazing in that respect (e.g. you don't hear the air conditioning noise until it shuts down at 18.00). Lossless would indeed be of no added value. Totally agree. But please leave the option open for those 1% who truly care.
I will be the first to admit there are many audiophile insanities [http://www.head-fi.org/t/486598/testing-audiophile-claims-and-myths].