I am not sure the customers ignorance plays any part of my post. I am sure you, I, and everyone you have ever met, have made purchases ignorant of certain information of our purchase. "The customer is always right" isn't about knowledge, it's about a way of doing business. It's the assumption the customer gave you his/her hard earned cash with certain expectations, correct or not, informed or not. If those expectations are not met, it's up to the vendor, if they are smart, to manage those expectations upfront, or reap the consequences.
Your right about the "spoiled" customers and the scammers, but those types are usually spotted by a good manager.
As "liveone" stated, your taking my statement a bit literal. Let's see if I can be a bit more specific. For example, I am a brand new customer of a vendor. If to make the customer happy because of a perceived issue, and at most it only costs me my "costs" on that sale, I would sacrifice my costs whether the customer was right or wrong (within reason). A happy customer breeds sales and referrals. Sacrificing more than that, and taking a loss, is a different story, though losses should be a part of your overall pricing and business plan, it happens, those situations are situational.
Your point about the $10.00 tank, I go back to what I said before, I would happily give up my costs to make a customer happy, but a loss, depending on size, the customers past purchases etc needs more investigation.
Bottom line, there is no metric or a way to measure how many customers you may lose by upsetting one customer. It is however a known fact, a happy customer tells others of their great experience. Ask pretty much any Apple customer, Apple has this down to a science. I have always gotten refunds from ITunes for an issue, they swap my hardware with zero hassle, so I buy Apple products. Same with Amazon, Zappo's etc...no hassle returns, no questions asked, why? Because it brings in business and they know it.
Hope this clarifies some of my points...
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