No olive hymen, no olive diamond. I don't make the rules.

If you're using it for cooking it is totally pointless to buy extra virgin. All extra virgin means is it is extracted solely mechanically without heat.

If you heat it enough to saute it basically isn't EV anymore and you'll cook off any extra flavor. You ususlly want to saute with plain olive oil anyways because it has a higher smoke temperature so you're less likely to burn it.

If you're baking nine times out of ten you don't want that extra "olive" flavor in your baked goods that you in theory get from EV, you want the neutral taste of just plain (or some other cheaper oil).

The only time you would want EV is if you were going to use it for its extra "olive-y" flavoring in raw form, such as in a dressing or as a bread dip.

Even the "its healthier for your heart" argument is dubious. On some lab tested conditions level it's theorhetically true. But for the average person using some reasonable amount the difference is totally negligible.

It is all a marketing scam to sell you something you don't need, which is often as you pointed out fake anyways.

For like 99% of home cooks the rule should be regular cheap olive oil 99% of the time, spring for the EV kind only on the rare occassion you're featuring it raw and you're willing to do the bit of leg work to check to make sure you're getting from a producer with an impecible reputation, which is basically none of the big brands so you will pay even more.