Bride and Clemens are not good counter examples to this. The purpose of the farm is not to have a bunch of Quad-A players available for emergencies. The farm is about player development. You might house some Quad-A guys there, but not enough to fill-in for all scenarios. Hence....waivers.
And your own argument on Lewis/Lee speaks to why this is hypocritical. You want those guys down/benched because they can't hit, but that's why Julien, Miranda, and others are down there. They need development/refinement. Clemens and Bride are past that stage. They are what they are. And what they are is not good enough for a regular role unless you get lucky and somebody goes on a heater. (Clemens) They're not good enough to steal regular at-bats from actually talented players like Lee.
I know you are aware of this but your arguments seem to exist in some other space where this reality doesn't exist: there is a finite amount of available playing time. There is a finite amount of player development that has proved to be possible across all of time and space in baseball. "Everything all at once" is a movie title, not a reality of baseball.