I still maintain that the person who wrote that article was either doing it just to drive traffic by making bold claims about the design, or was completely unqu

I still maintain that the person who wrote that article was either doing it just to drive traffic by making bold claims about the design, or was completely unqualified to be discussing the topic and happened to touch on something viral. At the root of it, products are all designed to be as cheap as possible to produce while meeting the product requirements. Beats are positioned as a "premium fashion" product, not a audiophile sound product, and when you are selling that type of product look and feel is very important to get right to justify the high price. The price of a product has very little to do with the actual cost in such a market, where high prices convey status and drive the desire to purchase the product to show they are more well off than those that can't afford it. On the product design side, the design isn't even that egregious. Most of the weight is the headphone slider mechanism, where metal is a better choice as metal riding on plastic is going to be more durable and feel better than plastic on plastic unless materials and design are very carefully considered. The other two parts are just light cosmetic parts that absolutely were designed to be accents that looked good, and give that premium look (at extra cost, they could have just painted plastic metallic for less). It isn't like they took a couple pieces of pot metal and glued them inside the earcups to make them heavier, both parts have a function even if one is primarily cosmetic.