Meh, you're comparing the most nit picky group on the web (myself included) with the average consumer, although putting myself in that category of being extremely nit picky, I have happily used my Fold 2 for the past year. The crease is very much overblown, those of us who use these as daily drivers know that. Still, I can't deny it is a negative and certainly I would not say no to not having a crease. But as a daily driver the crease rapidly disappears from view and the only time I really thought about it was the first day or 2 that I owned it.The crease down the middle which shows up over time. When foldphones were first released and MR reported on it, immediatly a huge majority of MR members were in instant dislike to the noticable fold line that was present on the phone. It was noticable after test samples were given to a select few youtubers to try out in the realworld and whilst very faint, a crease fold was slightly noticeable and this immediatly put off MR members.
There is bound to be creases when you fold something often enough but for MR members, nope, not going to happen, has to be no creases what so ever, which implies as sense of 'i want perfection in an Apple product'.
I agree that Apple most likely considers this as an imperfection and would not release it with a crease, I just don't think consumers would care that much. But the technology is rapidly improving and I don't doubt that it will be resolved in the near future, or we will move to another method such as rollable screens or something not invented yet. My hope is that Apple isn't done inventing and comes up with something novel, although I don't see them releasing such a phone for at least 4-5 years.