I would only consider something brand new if I bought it direct from a retailer. everything else is pre-owned.
Good point, but even so retailers have resold and will continue to resell returned and opened items. Even items from their display cases that were violated by people who knew not how to handle them properly (funny how people sometimes don't care for things as well when they are not theirs LOL). Anyway, who's to say that 'new' pair from the retailer is any better than the minty pair I have?
I think the best way to describe these pieces is using a combination of BNIB/LNIB/etc... with a number. When I see "BNIB" or "LNIB" with no additional qualifiers I presume the item is a 10/10, which is risky bordering on naive - shame on me!