Re: on one hand
"If you fold a material enough times, you will weaken the structural integrity of the object."
Where does physics tell us that? It doesn't. It tells us that some materials can be repeatidly deformed (within their elastic limit) without issue, and some materials can't.
Samsung aren't stupid ( though they have rushed things in the past: Note fires, first version of this Fold, not allowing Bixby button to be remapped) and they have tested the material. However they didn't perform the tests in the presence of dust. So, now its a case of seeing how good their dust sealing is, hardly an impossible challenge.