Chris, whilst I commend your efforts in explaining the technicalities of the batteries, I'm going to take a number of issues in regards to your advice and what you have said. I'm also going to suggest that you have no professional connection to the consumer battery industry. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Before I go any further, I should say that I deal with li-ion batteries on a daily basis in a professional capacity and have over £100k worth in stock at any particular time. I should also say that my business has nothing to do with photographic equipment, but it is involved in expensive, small, portable electronic equipment. In other words, I have no vested interest here, but I know what I'm talking about.
Firstly, Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) batteries are wonderful things! They do not suffer from charge-cycle degredation throughout their expected lifespan, but they DO have a specific lifespan - typically about 400 charge cycles. They cannot be rejuvinated once they have been through these 400 cycles, however, they do not 'die' in a traditional sense. They will contine to accept a charge and will 'appear' to be fully charged.
The 'recharge performance' meter is a bit of a misnomer. What's actually happening here is the battery is telling the camera how many times it has been charged and the camera software is displaying this information in a graphical sense. This will ONLY apply to a (OEM) manufacturers battery, since only the manufacturers battery will be 'programmed' correctly to talk to the camera. Other batteries may well show the apparent recharge performance, but they are talking to the camera in a different language. The camera knows how to display the Canon (or Nikon) language, but it doesn't know how to display a 3rd party battery conversation. So, you might have a battery showing three green bars, but that could be because that's all the camera can display with what it's being told. In other words, it's a meaningless display on anything but a genuine battery.
Now, there are batteries and there are batteries and then there are batteries! The batteries as you see them are simply manufacturers bespoke cartridges containing specific cells.
Canon/Nikon etc will only use a premium quality cell in their branded batteries from the factory. Needless to say, a premium cell isn't cheap, but it's not worth a manufacturers good name puting their faith in anything but the best of cells. THIS is why they are not cheap.
A 'branded' aftermarket battery (Duracell for example) will also use a fairly premium quality cell. The reason is also that they are putting their name on it, so it has to be up to their standards.
A 'cheap' aftermarket battery may be 'branded', but it won't be a recognised brand and it will likely contain fairly cheap cells. It doesn't matter a jot if a cheaper battery has a higher (2200mAh) capacity against the OEM battery capacity. That in itself doesn't make it any better. Someone with a heart condition can have a higher lung capacity than an athelete, but they sure as hell can't run further or faster!
Finally (worst of all) is the fake 'genuine' battery. I once sourced five brand new LP-E6 batteries via eBay for £125 as part of a test. They looked identical to the ones that came with the camera. However, they were totally fake and lasted for about three charge cycles. Upon close inspection with a magnifying glass, the label was found to have a single discrepancy (spelling) in the very small print on one of the re-cycle logos. It actually said 're-dycle'.
So, the morale is that they may look the same, but.......
To give an analogy, the batteries are like cars.
Four Ford Focus cars are in front of you.
One has a tank filled with Shell V-Power petrol
One has a tank filled with BP unleaded petrol
One has a tank filled with a mix of petrol and red diesel
One has a tank filled with pig slurry
All four cars look the same, but two run well, one runs like a bag of spanners and one stalls and dies after two minutes. But hey!, the third and fourth cars are a bit of a bargain.......
