You are pretty spot on. Its either studio designs it all and then said retailer sells ... some product buyers may make suggestions and typically needs already approved art ... and/or there are creative briefs with "assets" in them which is already approved art that can be used. Some titles and or studios have diff flex.
I dont find any of it insulting to the blufans version because we're now in a part of the hobby where there are different ranges of steelbooks in regards to price range. There are MANY MANY MANY movie collectors , consumers etc who will never spend $60 on a movie so ... insert this release and others that have the price range of casual consumers.
I think it would suck however if it were the exact same art and finish of the blufans but even then it could have been done ....
I agree with you on a lot of the sentiments but I dont think its a problem with people mentioning gloss etc. Granted Matte and Satin work very well on some releases, but there is also the times they just do matte to keep things cheaper when gloss really would have made it great for the end consumer. I know first hand from a meeting last year in Europe when speaking to a previous universal sales guy who sold all those steels to the EU market that he said when he was in that position he would log on and check the feedback on HDN. Took me by surprise to hear him say that , but very cool to know that people are reading. Which is why I say people should give descriptive criticism instead of coming off like "thread crapping" as if you have a point to make and of course if you have the time to do so ... give us 2 sentences instead of 4 words. But we don't need novels to read either tho.... im pushing it with the mass quoting in this post haha.