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@EdwardZ
Not sure what a "proper used camera" is. Are the low cost fixed focus consumer box cameras "proper"? Are my favorite Robot cameras "proper"? Are Rollei TLRs "proper"? Are modern electronic cameras with image stabilization and auto-focus "proper"? I would set the mark as "cameras that were trying to take good pictures" versus cameras that are intentionally made to be out of focus, leak light and produce distorted images. Sure the Holgas were made to be cheap and they did try to make a camera for the masses but the quality control was just horrible. It was not the plastic but the materials, design and quality control. A number of companies made excellent plastic cameras. A number of Minox cameras come to mind--- the EC and ECX 8x11 models and all the 35mm models were made of plastic (Macrolon). Panasonic and Leica too made a number of plastic point and shoot models that were excellent.
With luck one could find a Lomo, Holga or any of a number of cheapest plastic cameras--- Lomo made a number of great cameras but these are not what people mean when they speak of "Lomos"--- could take OK pictures when they came to specification but the moulds were just not very tight and the tolerances were sloppy. The Lomo model that "started it all" is the LC-A. It was a knock-off of a Cosina CX-2, itself a knock-off of the Minox 35mm. The LC-A, like a lot of Soviet cameras in the 1980s, had miserable QC. A number of companies would import models, hand select them and sometimes modify them to be able to sell good cameras at a great price point. The Kiev 88, for example, comes to mind.
Today's Lomos are not really Lomos but plastic Chinese cameras.. and the brand belongs to an Austrian company and not Leningradskoye Optiko Mechanicheskoye Obyedinenie. They are designed and intended to miss the mark..