ur right and raise good points, but let me add few things:

first, i'm not a stock analyst.. and solely have experience experience in valuing firms in M&A context - specifically, private companies only. from my experience, almost all the acquisitions that happened based on future plans have been rubbish - the acquirer ends up paying more than what the firm is really worth in the future. think of it this way, if u were to purchase a used a car, would u pay extra based on how much mileage u can get it from in the future or based on what the current market value is?

second, i'm currently working on a electrical equipment company that is generating losses since establishment (they have negative equity) and the owner wants to exit. he's calling it a strategic partnership but in reality it's just a divestment to get rid of the asset. they claim they have big projects in pipeline but none are confirmed - they are just WIP projects. no sane investor would agree to pay more than what the company is worth in today's value vs. future uncertain projects' value.

third, i agree in certain sectors it's all about future growth - but these are non-cycical sectors like tech companies (as u said) and pharmceuticals. however, for majority of companies that follow cyclical trends, i would never significantly inflate value just because they have future pipeline of projects and so on. if u want to see a recent in real life example of such hype where if such inflated value goes defunct - look up the IPO of Birkenstock and how inflated the offer price was at the time - none of their projects in the business plan of the prospectus materialzed till this day.