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Jemanji, you draw many conclusions in your discussion of the importance of power hitting at 1B, 3B, LF, and RF.  I also realize that you acknowledge nuance in your essay, but your main conclusion appears to be that modern statistical analysis has lost sight of the value of offense first positions in general, and  homeruns at offense first positions in specific.  Among the many arguments you utilize to support the position is the historical emphasis on big, slow third basemen that could hit the ball a country mile.
This archetype for 3B, however, did not exist until the 1950's (with the exception of Frank 'Home-Run' Baker, which still leaves a 40 year gap before the arrival of the second.).  Why?  Well, in the teens defending the bunt was an essential part of defense, so maybe 3B was a defensive position in the early history of baseball and the sport was slow to evolve to the impact of HR hitting.  Nonetheless, if you peruse The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, the list of 50 best 3B is dominated by post world war II players, and almost all of the pre-1950's players were singles hitters.  Of Frank Baker, Stan Hack, Pie Traynor, Jimmy Collins, Heinie Groh, John McGraw, Larry Gardner, George Kell, Harlond Clift, Buddy Lewis, Freddie Lindstronm, Red Rolfe, Ed Williamson, Bill Bradley,  and Billy Nash, only Frank Baker and Harlond Clift had power hitting as a key strength.
Another argument you seem to be making is that stastically minded fans have over-valued defense, particularly at 1B, 3B, LF, and RF.  My first comment, is that someone at fangraphs would never look at Pie Traynor's batting average and defensive reputation and argue how he is better than Mike Schmidt.  I agree that I can glance through the comments at fangraphs or any number of other sites and find many unsophisticated comments arguing that the supposed 50 runs saved in LF by Carlos Gomez over Manny Ramirez makes them players of equal value, but why waste your rhetorical skill on such lightweights?
I claim the sophisticated statistical point is that all sources of value matter, hitting, fielding, and base running, and they all matter at 1B and SS.  That UZR or any other tool used to attribute defensive value has issues doesn't change the fact that you can design a team to win 3-2 or 9-8.  On many occasions you have appeared to scoff at the notion that a run saved is as valuable as a run earned.  I must admit that I don't understand this argument at all.  Is it tongue in cheek?
As you acknowledge, the goal is good hitters and I fully agree that hitting 25 homeruns gets you a long way to being a good hitter.  But so does 90 walks.  In the end, it is so hard to acquire the talent needed to win a World Series, why narrow your options by being pre-occupied with traditional archetypes?  Afterall, pre-occupation with the traditional power hitting 3B archetype is what kept Jim Presley's 25 home runs and 0.290 OBP in Seattle and Edgar Martinez's 0.440 OBP stationed in the wilds of Canada for 2 year too long.
One last comment.  I think you have argued in the past that the current M's front office over-values defense.  I would like to make the counter point that almost all of the cases where defense was valued over offense (Endy Chavez, Casey Kotchman, Jack Wilson, Brendan Ryan, so on) have involved patches to the major league roster.  I think these have all been patches done on the cheap, designed to make the M's watchable, while they waited for the disaster contracts to come off the books.  Simultaneously, the front office used what little resource flexibility they had to increase their investiment in the minor leagues.  Consequently, you should look to the minor leaguers to get a sense of Jack's baseball philosophy, not the dumpster diving moves designed to get a watchable product on the field while cutting payroll.  I say, if you want to understand what matters to Jack, look at the draft picks.  There are many bat first selections (Ryan Franklin, Marcus Littlewood, Brad Miller, Rich Poythress, Kyle Seager, Kevin Cron, and so on).  But if I wanted to select a single move as a demonstration of Jack's baseball philosophy, it would be the decision to move Dustin Ackley to 2B.  If you were pre-occupied with pretty defense, why would you delay the arrival of your best hitting talent and endanger the esthestic appeal of the keystone defense?  Jack wants hitters, but the only way to get them on the cheap is to cultivate them from the seed.
In the end, I doubt we actually disagree all that much, but I think your flair for rhetoric has hidden the key issue for me -- the M's are bad because they lack good players not because they lack the right kind of good players.  Good players can fit the 1B, 3B, LF, and RF archetypes (Eddie Murray, Mike Schmidt, Jim Rice, Tony Armas) or break it (Keith Hernandez, Wade Boggs, Tim Raines, Tony Gwynn) -- just get the best players you can.