Hi @blueberry404, so I've been in the NFT space for around a year now and I'll give you my perspective on your bulletpoints.

Concerns regarding environmental impact (for PoW platforms)

This is overblown FUD. NFTs in and of themselves don't add to the environmental impact of Ethereum, Ethereum is a lot bigger than NFTs and regardless, the blocks will be produced. This is only the beginning when it comes to blockchain tech and the idea that it shouldn't be used because of this is misguided. Not to mention the science behind the energy consumption claims of PoW blockchains has been convincingly debunked for anyone that wants to learn more about it.

The main issue with this concern is it lacks context, or rather it's only ever put in a negative context ie "Bitcoin consumes as much energy as some small countries" is something you may have heard, but it's also true that seasonal Christmas lights in America also consumes more energy than those same countries. Point being if you look at a graph showing the largest fossil fuel consumption industries from greatest to least, all blockchain is too small to even show up on that graph. I've had to explain this to a lot of people over time, so I could go on, but I don't want this to be too much of a book.

Reinforcing the "fine art market" - as in networked, famous artists got sales while small creators got nothing most of the times (this was proven wrong in some instances, but the big gains were pooled in the top ~20% like most markets)

This is definitely a thing, but the problem is people act like if your not making six figures on a piece than it's not worth it or something. If you sell a piece for $100, $500, $1000 etc, that's absolutely worth doing in my opinion and I know tons of people, myself included that have sold dozens of pieces around these price ranges plus or minus.

Seeing low effort memes soaring in value was disheartening, it basically reinforced the above point - it looked like it was all about notoriety rather than effort

This happens because of mania primarily. There are real art collectors in the space and there are people looking to make a quick buck by flipping a gimmick, and everything inbetween. If you're a serious artist, connect with the other serious artists and serious collectors and this sort of thing fades into the background more.

Lack of intrinsic value - I'd rather make something that the common person can use and enjoy, not a luxury toy that can be bought only by whales

Nothing has "intrinsic" value. Things have value because people decide they have value. Gold is just a shiny rock, so are diamonds. If someone wants something and is willing to pay for it, it has value. If you want regular people to be able to afford your work, you can price it low, although I wouldn't recommend that.

Theft and lack of authenticity - some platforms allowed exploitation of stolen art works

This is just an unfortunate and annoying thing that goes with decentralization. Major platforms will act quickly if fraud found, but sometimes its after someone scammed a ton of money. The only thing I can say here is this is not really a knock on the technology, it's just people being people.

Excuse the fact that I'm being pretty matter of fact about these things, obviously it's all just my opinion based on my experiences. Just trying to be concise.