These are good points, and my only reason for "conceding" natural vitamin E to the naturalists has to do with the fact that I don't believe the actual vitamin E molecule is known, is it? How do you synthesize something you don't know its exact chemical character?
I had thought the chemical structure of vitamin e was well known and the term "vitamin e" actually represents multiple tocopherols and tocotrienols. I think I read somewhere that dl-alpha-tocopherol is the "synthetic" version because it is the cheapest one to make that has "vitamin e" properties (according to some study or another). I'm pretty sure many if not most of the vitamin e molecules that are known to occur naturally have been synthesized at this point along with who knows how many synthetic analogs.
In direct contrast, vitamin c refers to exactly one L eantomer of a certain organic acid or salt thereof derived from glucose. It got named ascorbic acid precicely because it was the only substance that prevented or cured scurvy.
Those chemists are pretty darn smart and have lots more tools at their disposal today than 100+ plus years ago when the term vitamin was first coined.