I stand by my assertion that converting to DNG makes no difference; but evidently only using exactly the same software for both DNG and CR2. Therefore it's not the DNG format that is the 'culprit', it's the software that processes it.
This is not, what you have proven. You have shown, that ACR interprets the native raw file identically as the DNG file. Big deal.
What about trying this with other raw converters? Some of them process (or processed in the past) the raw file "normally", i.e. as the raw processor's designers/programmers decided, while processing the DNG file as Adobe decided. This is relevant regarding the color reproduction.
However, again, in my eyes this is not an argument for or against DNG. This is the question of interpretation: if you select the path of
DNG created by Adobe's DNG converter, you decide for Adobe's interpretation, which is the same as if you convert the native raw file directly with ACR. If you process the raw files (native and DNG) with another raw converter, the results may or may not be identical.
I remember there was a time, when Aperture processed DNG files, but only those created from natively supported raw files; this indicated, thet Aperture supported the format but did not give a damn for Adobe's interpretation of that raw data.