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Yes, multivitamins are a bit of an ad hoc solution (more on that below), and honestly I don't know a lot about them, but I am basing my endorsement of them on what seems to be a consensus among nutritionists and others who should know. Now, could they be wrong? Absolutely. I haven't looked at any actual studies on multivitamins myself (other than the metastudy you just linked to), and probably, as that study suggests, there isn't a lot of data out there to begin with. The studies that this article reviewed seemed to at times find positive evidence for the benefits of multivitamins, but it was inconsistent. In any case, they're not harmful and so (except for their cost) there's no risk in taking them -- as long as it is done intelligently; as you point out, one doesn't need 5000% of one's 'recommended daily value' per day.
However, I would note that the article you linked to seems mostly concerned with major issues like cancer, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease, and found little to no consistent effect from multivitamins. But I (for one) never really thought the point of multivitamins was to help with those major issues in the first place. I see them as a way to prevent specific vitamin and mineral deficiencies (which I'm fairly certain they do help with), and perhaps boost overall immune-system performance (although I don't really know how well they do that).
The vegetarian (or in your case, mostly vegetarian) diet is what helps with bringing down all those cardiovascular and other major risks that seem to be mostly associated with consumption of too much bad cholesterol and fats in general (and saturated fats and trans fats in particular), though such problems are also with too little exercise, smoking, and other things.
To be perfectly honest, I don't know whether a purely vegan or vegetarian diet is better in health terms than an almost-vegetarian diet. I suspect it is, but nearly all the research out there compares the typical American diet with a vegetarian diet, and while that comes back in favor of vegetarianism or veganism, that could just be because the typical American diet contains way too much meat, dairy, and eggs. But maybe in small amounts those things are okay. To me, though, there are other reasons to be vegan; nutrition is just one of many, many things that makes me think being vegan is overall a better choice than not being vegan.
Also, I should say that I have absolutely nothing against people who try to reduce their meat (or dairy or whatever) consumption, even if they're not strict vegetarians (or vegans). It doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing thing. For all the reasons I'm vegan, anyone eating less animal products is better than not trying at all, and I support you and see you as an ally, not an enemy. And I would not criticize you for not going "all the way" with it. In that way, I am at odds with PETA and some of the other animal activists, and I think a lot of times they're not helping the cause because they just make meat-eaters defensive and then nobody can get anywhere because the argument is reduced to "meat is murder" (obviously untrue, although it is killing) versus "mmm, but it tastes so good" (obviously true, but not exactly a relevant response to an ethical question; some people also enjoy robbery or rape, but no one would say that makes them okay).
This is getting a little longer than I intended, but one more point in defense of vitamin supplements is that I have sympathy for the viewpoint that we shouldn't need supplements because after all we didn't evolve eating supplements, they're unnatural, etc. -- however, we don't have the same environment that we had as, say, hunter-gatherers. We have changed our surroundings and our sources of food, so we need to adapt in accordance with that. We don't eat a lot of roughage and leafy greens and such anymore; our refined grains are not as good for us; not to mention that we have comparatively depleted the soil of nutrients with our agriculture. So anyway, I used to be sort of anti-vitamin-pill kind of for that reason, but with all I've read and researched about nutrition, I've come around on that issue. (Being vegan really makes you research all this nutrition stuff, not because you really need to compared to omnivores for the sake of staying healthy, but just because everyone is constantly challenging you on your nutritional opinion and you need facts to back it up.) Sorry this is so long-winded; thanks for listening.
