I wasn't name dropping as I hadn't claimed to know any of those wheels personally.

I also wasn't going to bother explaining (in more detail) the reasons for some of high end wheels use cartridges because this is old, old news but here is the short answer.

Many high end wheels (hubs) are made in Taiwan by companies like Joy Ind Co., Formula, Chin Haur etc. It is much easier, and cheaper (as Pismet pointed out) for them to produce a cartridge hub than it is for them to produce a QUALITY cup and cone. Wheels like FSA, American Classic or most others you can name fall into this category.

Department store bikes feature LOW QUALITY cup and cone hubs because these are less expensive to produce than a quality cartridge hub. So, to be clear, in order of cost we have low end cup and cone, cartridge bearing hubs and finally high end cup and cone.

There is also the marketing factor. When cartridge bearings were first being introduced to bikes some companies decided to go that route because of the perceived value in the market place (see: ceramic bearings). Consumers felt that they were better so manufacturers looked at the lower production costs and said, "Hell yeah. They're great!"

Also, they were being sold against Shimano hubs that lacked serviceability ( a damaged hub race can't be replaced) whereas cartridge bearing hubs had a much longer lifespan because the races were replaceable.

Shimano stated officially, in the 80's, that they would never go with cartridge bearings in their wheels because hubs experience side loading (through clamping forces from the QR, for instance) and the best way to deal with it was with cup and cone unless you wanted to go with needle bearings (but that has it's own design issues). If you want to argue this point contact them. I'm certain the brain trust here knows more about wheels than the engineers at Shimano and Campagnolo do.

To the OP, I hope this answers your question. There is inconsistency because there are other factors involved beyond what really functions best.