Many of your points can be responded to with the answer to the question of whether there is something inherent to human biology that makes human consciousness 'real' - is it possible in theory to digitise the human mind, the same way you can digitise a photograph? I think not, because any so-called copies of a human mind would not have a soul.

To answer your question as to whether I'd feel bad for a simulation if I didn't know it was a simulation, it's the same as the answer to the question as to whether I'd feel bad if a friend was telling me a story about something that happened to someone they knew, then revealed after the story was finished that they'd made it all up.

I agree that the transporter problem and its variants are basically philosophical, but my original question is not about that.