While I in many ways agree w/your facts and assessments, I'm 1 who would rather get a puppy from a breeder (and have). Sorry, but as if mutts themselves are unpredictable, imagine an adult dog of unknown history! Sorry, some of us just aren't willing to risk *our* lives for a totally unknown quantity.
That's not to say it's not nice for you to take them in and help them out, but to impugn every1 else who thinks it's better to use a controlled quantity is kind of disingenuous.
As for money - believe me, NONE of it matters. Truth is, no matter if you pay ZERO or 1000s, you can get CRAP or you can get a JEWEL.
My own absolute JEWEL was $500 in the '80s (pretty standard AKC show price) from a top German Shepherd handler w/good German and American lines. Shana was "no good" to AKC show ring hacks, but she was the greatest *dog* I have ever even HEARD of, much less had the blessed privilege to own. None of the pound mutts my family had had came close, nor even the previous papered-from-local-farm German Shepherd. Money means nothing for a pet - you have to assess the dog. I did greatly on that assessment and I was just a teen (1st time ever getting into the AKC world). Don't denigrate a dog just cuz it cost money. Not all are out to get us.
But all that said, I agree about AKC generally. They don't impress me as being really serious about stopping bad people. Maybe record-keeping is their only job, but for all the talk they do, they should really put their money where their collective mouth is. Or not talk about it at all. I don't understand all the defense of do-nothing AKC when the ancient example of the original German Shepherd Club is out there for how authoritative a mere club can be.
(Indeed, last dog before Shana was from a local city-dweller selling thru classifieds. She had bogus papers [but we stupidly went thru & bought - cheap! - anyway], saying pups were AKC German Shepherds. Well, she had the gaul to have both parents there - and daddy didn't quite look like a pure GS. Elsa turned out to be a skinny-type thing w/soft slightly upturned hair - and retriever-like ears. Rip-off. We did our homework MAJORLY next time.)
Sounds like she at least had the real parents there. The not-quite-GS dad probably had papers saying he was all GS, and maybe the lady even believed it. Not all of the puppy sellers are so honest, however. My boss got his Maltese from someone representing herself as a breeder. My boss and his wife went to her home and saw a litter of adorable Maltese puppies, with their Maltese mom, who they were told was a family pet with champion bloodlines -- and no other dogs in sight or mentioned. They thought about getting two puppies, but decided not to get carried away and just bought one as they had originally planned. After a couple of days, they thought about it some more, and decided they should have gotten two after all. They called the "breeder" and asked if any were left, and she said 2 were left, but couldn't guarantee they'd still be there when my boss and his wife could return on the weekend (they couldn't get there sooner). So the weekend came, and my boss and his wife headed over to the breeder's home again. Funny but there wasn't a Maltese in sight -- no puppies, no mama. But a litter of Yorkies and their mom had magically appeared. The breeder made some non-credible explanation, but my boss and his wife didn't understand what was really going on, and ended up going home with an expensive Yorkie pup, with "papers" and "champion bloodlines" and a mom who was a "family pet".
German Shepherds have been one of the real horror stories of the AKC. Forget puppy mills, the real champion dogs were bred with more and more exaggerated hip angles, to please the AKC judges, who regarded the deformed hips as an ideal for the breed. Eventually it got so bad that police and other professional handlers of working German Shepherds couldn't use American-bred dogs anymore, because their hips kept giving out on the job. Most working German Shepherds are now imported from Europe, where the AKC didn't have the opportunity to destroy the breed.
"But all that said, I agree about AKC generally. They don't impress me as being really serious about stopping bad people. Maybe record-keeping is their only job, but for all the talk they do, they should really put their money where their collective mouth is."
The AKC is saying the same things now that it said 40 years ago when I first used their advice to look for a dog. They don't recommend breeders but they do recommend that you go talk to various reputable owners and breeders. This isn't what people want to hear though. Most people want the AKC registration to be a kind of good housekeeping seal, it just doesn't work that way and never has.