None of that actually seems to contradict the claim that SSDs encrypt everything by default. You're just pointing out various ways that the encryption keys are

None of that actually seems to contradict the claim that SSDs encrypt everything by default. You're just pointing out various ways that the encryption keys are not kept secure. If you haven't configured your system to make use of the drive's encryption capabilities in a secure way, the drive can (and all evidence points to does) still pass the data through the encryption for whitening without attempting to use the encryption process to provide security.