It might be a trivial thing to acquire but if the the white card stock has the same attributes to the original I could see that being a raw original material for example that was worked with. It is potentially one of the components that cannot just be newly created with ease like the printouts(?).From then on they could have some original materials (such as uncut sheets) that they assembled, at this point the line of legitimacy is being blurred. Then it is not a small conceptual/‘moral’ leap from assembling original materials to creating new components.
The original components being assembled is a tangential theory at this point without evidence.
The theory you propose has a lot backing it. If that is the case, it truly is an example of ‘tell a lie so big that people believe it’. Though even with this theory, there is still the possibility of original components being used.
If original components were assembled, it is even possible that a 1996 dot pattern was newly cut from a sheet. Though as you say, only a handful of 1996 dot pattern cards have emerged (they are likely original completely). Also a possibility the copiers acquired legitimate cards, removed the authentic paper components and replaced them with copies onto the original white card stock.
None of theories so far require the component of original materials to prove a recent production date, but it is a possibility I am open to.
In this thread I linked to an example where in MTG they printed paper sheets of card designs for other purposes
Though of course this would not be relevant for examples with recent printing. In an example of a recently cut original sheet, you could see how someone could use something like this.
Also in reference to some of the people pointing to the signatures as proof that CGC allowed for newly cut sheets to be stuck to card and graded as ‘mounted on card’, if this is true perhaps it was what opened the door to new part assemblies to slip through the net. Once you accept a ‘purportedly authentic’ newly cut sheet to be mounted to card and graded, it is not as much of a leap to miss newly printed sheets to be cut and mounted to card. Especially if there were to be any tests in regards to glues used.