Is no preamp really better that a good preamp?

Do they throw in the preamp after buying the gloves?

The correct answer is no. That should suffice for now. Even attenuated power amps with dials for gain like my McIntosh must have circuits that allows for attenuation to control volume is indeed acting just like a passive pre amp.

The correct answer is no! once again.

That's so the missus doesn't leave fingerprints after she's stabbed you in the back.

Here’s another incident

A women is on trial for murdering her husband by bludgeoning him to death with his antique guitar collection

Upon taking the witness stand the judge asked her ... “So first offender” ... to which she replied “No your honor , first the Gibson and then the Fender”
.

There might be more to the "impedance matching" than is obvious. A lot of amps have a DC block capacitor at their input, which attenuates low frequencies with a starting frequency that varies inversely with the driving impedance. IOW, with a high driving impedance, the blocking capacitor lets more ultra-low stuff through (which might be good or bad depending.... some amps and speakers need to keep that stuff out).
I use a series cap as a first-order highpass filter to cross to a sub, and a 'passive' box would move the crossover point all over the place.

I am at RMAF and saw the bespoke passive preamp that George posted the link to. It is quite a piece of art, has very smooth input selection and 47 step volume control, and both balanced and RCA connections. Unfortunately cannot judge the sound because it was only on a table display. Based on the view under the hood I can say it is well manufactured with proprietary wound transformers but at the price point it sure makes me pleased I own high value passives like the Lightspeed and Slagle AVC.