But adding water+emulsifier is sort of the equivalent of
adding eggs. Form a chemical-industrial point of view,
eggs are egg powder with added water. The article
mentions a doubling of the fat by adding water, which is
pretty much the same ratio between eggs and butter as I
use when making cake.

And I am not sure about the excess sugar either. In my
cakes, there are roughly equal parts sugar, butter,
eggs and flour. That's already a lot of sugar, and it
sure 'masks' the taste of the butter-with-egg mixture.

Sometimes you here people complain that the modern
city-dweller doesn't know how his foods are grown. But
in reality, people have a reasonably good idea how food
is grown. It's industrial processes that we are really
far removed from.