I think you are conflating 'lo'i' and 'le'i'; the lions relevant
to the situation as defined by the speaker is 'le'i cinfo'. 'lo'i'
at least attempts to make some kind of a quasi-objective
consideration of all lions.
Maybe, but I don't think so. {le'i} is the set of things the
speaker is talking about. This is normally a small set (most
often a singleton, if not then with two, three, four, a very
small number of members, rarely a large number of members).
The singularizer normally does not work on a particular
subset that the speaker has in mind.
But consider again the lion that was about to eat you. Let's
say you get away, and that the following year you meet a
friend who invites you to the zoo to show you a lion. This
zoo did not have a lion before. The dialogue could go
something like this:
coi adam i le dalpanka ca se xabju lo'e cinfo vau uo
Hi Adam! The zoo now has the Lion at last!
i mi na nelci cy
I don't like the Lion.
i xu do se slabu cy
Are you familiar with the Lion?
i go'i i mi pu penmi cy
Yes, I've met the Lion before.
Now, the individual lion that was about to eat you a year ago
is probably not the one in the zoo, but this is irrelevant in
this conversation. Of course, your friend could have used
{lo cinfo} to say that there is a lion in the zoo, but then
you could not say that you don't like "it".