It's definitely poaching for the brightest, motivated students while offering them security and freedom from neuroticism to do whatever they want. Win-win and all around with pretty positive social externalities (sorry, I'm an econ guy), but still predatory.
Your counterargument is off. It's not about "I have high stats, going to get into top 10." We're not arguing that FlexMed kids just have high stats and will thus have done very well in the regular app process. We know it's not just about stats. FlexMed itself is, by definition, not just about stats. The regular application process is not just about stats. Your brother probably wouldn't have stood a chance at FlexMed with his "standard ECs." There's nothing standard about FlexMed. He's not a relevant case study for our research question. We are debating the prospects FlexMed-caliber (sorry to phrase it like that) students in the regular process.
Each and every one of the 51 people admitted to this new class already demonstrated a high level of interest for something outside of medicine. That sort of thing isn't just going to disappear under the rug during the regular process. We have every reason to believe that the applicants in question would have continued to exercise their interest in their particular field, though perhaps not to the extent that FlexMed kids will, and no reason to believe that those experiences won't be noticed when they apply traditionally. In fact, if we really want to go extreme with the counterfactuals, we could say that if the applicant had the insight of how top admissions committees seem to be viewing applicants, that the more time they spent on non-traditional premed stuff (i.e., not worrying about shadowing, volunteering, research, and all that bullsh*t QUITE as much), they'd be in a much better position to take on the top schools when they file regular apps. From what SDN says more and more throughout the years, I don't think this counterfactual is far-fetched at all.
Once you take into account the fact that we're talking about "full package" considerations here, the overall argument that those who were admitted to FlexMed would have also done extremely well at research-heavy universities (screw USNWR) two years after the FlexMed process still stands. You can't just say "no one is guaranteed into Hopkins" (yeah, no ****) and disregard the other aspects of what we are arguing. (Plus, Sinai isn't even top 10 status, so I don't quite get the emphasis on bringing in super top schools.)
You claim security, we argue for choice. Choice not necessarily (as you say) between Harvard, Yale, Hopkins, WashU, but choice nevertheless between very good programs (like Sinai). In fact, I'd wager that if we were to really measure the risk averseness of premeds (through complicated experimental techniques I won't get into), many would prefer the element of choice rather than a rigid lock-in halfway through their college years, which is exactly what the academic literature on the subject would predict.
