If by trade publishing you mean what is referred to elsewhere--with a clarity forbidden here--as traditional publishing, then you'd have a point.
This is not an argument to make to someone who has professional expertise in current publishing, the history of publishing and codicology, and lexicography.
Traditional publishing is meaningless. Whose traditions? The traditions of Western Europe? Of Korea?
Pace to Victoria, but "traditional publishing" as you would have it used is stupid terminology and I won't use it.
However, using this definition Grey Cells doesn't even qualify as a trade publisher, so Old Hack is condescendingly comparing chainsaws to snowmobiles.
Which definition? You haven't provided one. Nor are you pointing to one.
A trade publisher publishes general books for the consumer, and sells primarily to businesses in the book trade: wholesalers, retailers, distributors and libraries.
That's a fairly standard definition, with over two hundred years of common use.
It makes a distinction between various other kinds of publishers—for instance, academic publishers, or scholarly publishers.
Based on the Self-Pub guidelines, Old Hack appears to include EPOD/E-Only under the trade publishing umbrella. If we're using this definition, then her statement runs into the even bigger problem of being wrong.
You're still not parsing well. Go read her sticky again. She does nothing of the kind.
POD is a business model and is sometimes used to refer to the laser printing technology used to produce printed books in very limited quantities "on demand." Note that use of POD doesn't really tell much about the publisher at all, though the quality of the books themselves will. All manner of people, companies, and publishers use POD. It too is traditional, since it's roughly twenty years old.
epub or ePUB (Adobe's term for their variant) is a file format used in ebook production. It is sometimes confusingly used to refer to all ebooks. An ebook is a container, just as a hardcover or a softcover/paperback book are containers. All manner of publishers and authors and other entities can and do produce ebooks. Ebooks are themselves accreting a tradition, since consumer ebooks (ebooks produced and sold to consumers rather than intended for corporate or internal use) are better than twenty years old.
However in this context, I would still consider Old Hack's statement a bigger red flag than the "not a vanity press" phrase showing up.
I'm beginning to consider your bizarre obsession with Old Hack and
attempts to control the conversation a red flag.
Consider this an official warning:
stop derailing.
This thread is about Holland House/Gray Cells. It's not about what you think words should mean, or your opinion of Old Hack. You're welcome to file a formal complaint by PMing MacAllister, should you wish to do that.
Now then back to Holland; were I seeking a publisher, I would be wary of one with such limited experience and an absence of demonstrable expertise. Publishing requires a number of very narrowly defined skills. I would be particularly worried about the assumption that academic editing qualifies one for anything other than academic editing.
Nonetheless, I think the world needs more good publishers publishing great books; I hope they succeed. I urge them to step back and contemplate where they are, what they lack, and where they want to be in two years' time. It's easier to fail now as a publisher than it has ever been.