The thing is, weapon mastery feats require more than just fighter levels: you need to have the fighter weapon training class feature. Point of fact, a fighter whose archetype traded out the weapon training class feature would not be able to take either weapon mastery feats, either. Martial Focus is the way around that.
Yeah, you need exactly what a prereq says. If something asks for "weapon training class feature", you need a class feature called "weapon training", or something that explicitly says it counts as such. That prereq doesn't care about which class the class feature is from (e.g. a Sohei Monk 6+ qualifies), or what other things from the class it normally comes form you have, it checks one specific thing, and that one thing only.
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I could likely convince my GM to allow it anyway given what I see as the likely "spirit" of Weapon Expertise's description
That's not in the spirit of those feats, though, as they were meant to strengthen the Fighter in general and Weapon Training (which is seriously lame for what's basically the Fighter's signature class feature) and the weapon group mechanic in specific. Flavor-wise, they're supposed to be highly specialized techniques for those with already advanced training with weapons.
With respect, Weapon Specialization requires you to be a 4th level fighter and to have the weapon focus feat in the same weapon. The samurai class specifically says that your levels in that class count as fighter levels for the purposes of meeting the prerequisites for feats that specifically select his chosen weapon... such as Weapon Specialization.
So yeah, we could hypothetically argue that it's the samurai's class design itself goes against the spirit of fighter-only feats, but at the end of the day the samurai's weapon expertise explicitly grants that class access to fighter-only feats that only require fighter levels. Weapon Mastery feats, however, require something above and beyond fighter levels.
Honestly, if you're not worried about what level to get the Weapon Mastery feats at (and most of them aren't available until 6th level or higher), your best bet is to play a Variant Multiclass Samurai with Fighter added on. At 11th level, you'd get Weapon Training 1, which gives access to both the Weapon Mastery and the Advanced Weapon Training feats... and the latter open all sorts of awesome doors. At 12th and 13th level, you'd get bonus feats that you could invest in one of those feats.
Sure, but then fighter-only feats like Weapon Specialization were also meant to strengthen the fighter. Samurai Weapon Expertise goes against that spirit, too.
This actually strengthens my argument, you know? Maybe the weapon mastery feats were made with Weapon Training rather than Fighter levels as a prereq precisely to give the class something that doesn't get poached by every class and archetype with "counts as fighter levels" exemption.
One interpretation of that ability is that it's intended to allow a samurai to grab the weapon-related feats the fighter has access to.
Except the feats requiring Fighter levels aren't all "weapon-related". Plenty of them aren't, for example Disruptive.
I'm not sure if UC came out prior to the Weapon Mastery feats
UC was released 4.5 years earlier than WHM (where the weapon mastery feats are from). That means those feats were made with knowledge of the existence of the Samurai, whereas over half the Fighter-only feats weren't, due to being older.
Disruptive is an example of a feat I wouldn't ever consider Weapon Expertise applying to, because of the wording of Weapon Expertise (being weapon-specific).
Forgot about that part, my apologies. But weapon mastery feats aren't weapon-specific either! That the author of that Samurai ability worded it so specific (that it only applies to five feats in total) even further indicates that applying it to other feats that work mechanically different is not in the spirit.
Oh, and one more thing: "you gain the benefits of a weapon mastery feat only while wielding a weapon that belongs to a fighter weapon group that you have selected with the fighter weapon training class feature (referred to hereafter as an “appropriate weapon”), and any effect of these feats related to attacks applies only to attacks from such weapons unless the feat specifies otherwise." WHM pg. 20
Those feats cannot even function without having selected a weapon group. The Weapon Expertise ability only applies to one of four different weapons, that is a fundamentally different design concept from weapon groups.
@Name Violation: Yes, that was established in the second post. Did you not read anything after the opening post?