I agree with your point of view. To tell the truth, white papers are conceptual things, and I don't have a good way to filter them. In most cases, some project teams and project endorsements are seen, and then eggs are not put in one basket, and small investments are made. The essence is whether the project party wants to do evil? Or, someone forced him to do evil.
The project owners already have their roadmap in front of them which will never get revealed to their investors. The main scams that happen, happen in the form of abandonment of the project or simply vanishing into thin air. The way this is done, is by making sure the investors remain in the dark while the money is collected by the abstract in th whitepaper, while the team remains anonymous.
If you think whitepaper will tell you about a scam, you are mistaken. Even then a well established whitepaper and a legit team can fail.