This is actually really annoying, especially since even the authentic's are not exactly the same as the on ice product.
I remember seeing them in the sore in teh 1st year of the Edge jersey (even if it was just canucks ones) and they were already the shiny vinyl patches.
That said, I think it actually took them a couple years to go to the shiny vinyl shoulder patches. I feel like the first year or so they were glued on normal patches and then they have gotten cheaper over the years.
If you want to be super picky about it, you can buy the embroidered shoulder patches and take them to a place that does jersey customization and they may be willing to replace the crappy vinyl ones with the ones you bought.
I did it with my Worcester jersey (because the one I got had mysteriously wrong patches on it) and my replica blackarmor one. You can get decent looking real/chinese knockoff shoulder patches on ebay for usually a couple of bucks for the pair.
Of course I can't say this for sure for you guys in/around SJ or in California in general. The place I go to (The Hockey Shop in Surrey, BC) is pretty hardcore about the services they provide. Also their primary jersey guy, Aaron, is a Sharks fan too
I haven't been in for a while though so I don't know if he's still there. But he enjoyed taking my original throwback sharks uni to put Larionov on it instead of the slew of Canucks customizations that were on the "to-do" rack