Spirochete:
which egyptian museum did you visit? the stuff in most museums can be hand-me-down objects of relatively little value (significance and beauty). my impression is that the egypt government and modern culture frowns upon objects kept outside of egypt (sometimes acquired by quasi-legal means or worse).
SunkenCiv:
Your explanation does not explain the unknown means of production of the petri cores and holes and of high precision of the planed and inscribed granite work. I believe those remain unsatisfactorily explained by archaeologists. Getting more people involved does not necessarily result in higher quality. It seems more likely that it would take different and higher levels of skill to coordinate large numbers of skilled individuals into making single sculptures of (net) high precision. Again, think of doing such a thing today, even with modern advanced precision tools. Also, iron for iron chisels (alleged by some to be used for granite holes in preparation for splitting) would be only 4 on the Mohs scale. Also, IIRC some of the obelisk inscriptions are in bas relief, which would seem to interfere with any simple methods used for accurate granite planing.
Houston Museum of Natural Science. They once had a pitiful handful of Egyptian relics and the mummy of Ankh-Hap.
Their newer dedicated exhibit hall is much better. The shabby items I referred to were ordinary everyday items: pottery, combs, ointment jars, chairs, shabti dolls, senet boards, sandals and such. I did see some masterfully done statues and pectoral necklaces.
The impression of "shabbiness" was magnified by being adjacent to an exhibit of Late Renaissance - Baroque firearms.
It wasn’t necessary to have iron tools or diamond saws.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3798099/posts?page=145#145
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3798099/posts?page=137#137