I've struggled with this for quite some time, as my fiance is a vegetarian, and her brother is a vegan. Fortunately, she (my fiance) still eats seafood, but her brother is no-holds barred no animal products whatsoever vegan. He needs special soap, toothpaste, food (of course) and just about everything else you use in daily life.
As far as my fiance is concerned, the reason I struggled with her vegetarianism is because it was so inconsistant - inconsistant with her reasoning. Originally, she said that she didn't eat meat because of the ethical issues. I didn't really understand this, as she ate fish/lobster/shrimp/anything else that comes from the sea, and has leather shoes, jackets, pants, ect. One day we were talking about it, and she finally told me that the reason she doesn't eat meat is simply because she doesn't like it - which makes a TON more sense to me than her "ethical issues" arguement. Obviously, I have no issues with vegetarians/vegans, but I still like a good steak every once in a while, although living with her it becomes more and more rare that I have one
As far as the "fake meat" was concerned, I suppose it does make a lot more sense to me now that it has been explained... It likely would make it quite a bit easier for someone who likes meat to make the transition to vegetarian if they were doing it for ethical reasons or whatever.
However, one arguement I don't really agree with for vegetarianism is the sheer amount of land that it takes to raise meat vs. vegetables. I'm not trying to say that it doesn't take a ton more land for someone to raise meat, but there isn't a land or food shortage - so why does it matter at this point? If we were destroying the land, making it unable to be used for vegetable planting later, I would understand it a lot more, but if I remember correctly, the United States produces more food each day than it would take to feed the entire world for a day. If it came down to the point where the world was struggling to produce enough food for everyone, I would advocate eating less or no meat, but until we reach that point, I don't see why it is even brought up...