There are people who think anybody else’s homemade food is disgusting-I don’t think that the yiddishe derech took those feelings into consideration.
Many people who are very careful in Halacha, insist on giving food that can be eaten by the Seuda, and that only then are you really yotzeh in mishloach manos. I got some challah/kugels that i put on my seuda table – I would never call it disgusting- they were delicious.
It could be that the ‘cement’ cookies were delicious when they were baked, and got unexpectedly hard because the packages were made erev Shabbos, as the motzai shabbos setup was a little challenging – clean up from Shabbos, dress the kids, prepare the seuda and shalach manos…….Don’t be so makpid and calculate your net loss/profit on your shalach manos – it’s meant to generate feelings of comradery and achdus.