WC, I think that the prejudices you bring to the discussion are stopping you from seeing that equicyclist is also looking for shared facilities, but shared with other more sedate forms of locomotion.
I agree with you, that it takes more than paint to turn a footpath into a cycle facility, it appears to me that equicyclist is looking to maximise the benefits we can get from using the many legal routes which are not roads. Maybe if you dropped your barricades, you could move on from your perception of "farcilities".
I've spent many pleasant hours cycling on roads, whether for pleasure, exercise or commuting, I don't have an issue sharing tarmac with cars. But there best times that I've had on a bike have been away from roads, with the kids or with friends, relaxing into the cycling as a form of enjoyment. Maybe that's down to the traffic levels and speeds where I live.
I consider myself fairly lucky because I can access many hundreds of miles of car-free routes, such as those equicyclist mentions, just by crossing the main road outside my house. If it weren't for that option, I don't think that the kids would even have bikes. I've only once had to grab my daughter as she hit something and started falling to the right in front of a car, but once is enough. If I hadn't been there and hadn't grabbed her, there would only have been one conclusion to the story.
Whilst there are plenty of good reasons to use roads, there are also plenty of good reasons to have quieter paths available, with a guarantee that there is nothing motorised to share it with.