Here some definitions for you, Elaborate: Containing a lot of careful detail or many detailed parts. Details definitely aren't careful or many.

Impressive: If an object or achievement is impressive, you admire or respect it, usually because it is special, important, or very large. They're not special, important, or very large by any objective metric.

Decorative: Serving to decorate especially : purely ornamental You could use them as a decoration but it's definitely not their purpose, and them saying that they never broke implies that they were using them.

Expensive has never, nor will it ever, mean that the product 100% of the time is better.

True, but irrelevant. It's not about being better, it's about being fancy. (Edit: Whatever fancy actually means, words have lost all meaning at this point of the argument and I'm losing grip on reality)

They never broke.

Maybe, but we don't know how often they were used or even how they were used. And while I've never seen these particular plates in person, I've know plenty of plates like them where the printed design will quickly chip of or fade which speaks of poor quality.

Compared to a plain plate with nothing on it, these are undeniably elaborate.

Something being more elaborate than something else doesn't mean that it's something any reasonable person would call elaborate itself. If I scribble on a piece of paper you could say it's more elaborate than an empty page, but would anyone look at some paper with a scribble on it and call it elaborate without a reference point?

Edit: ignore that paper analogy, upon further thought I don't think you can call something that's elaborate elaborate without a plainer reference point to compare it to actually. I still stand by the first bit about something being more elaborate makes it elaborate itself though.

Edit 2 electric boogaloo: Don't take my arguing to heart I'm just doing it to be contrary at this point