After thinking about this, I think you're probably right, along with a gradual declining of standards about caramelization. I've made caramelized onions multip

After thinking about this, I think you're probably right, along with a gradual declining of standards about caramelization. I've made caramelized onions multiple times, watching over them for long periods of time. At some point several years ago I became confused by the issue referred to in the article, and thought that I was mistaken about what caramelizing onions was. I've come to realize that I was not. However, caramelizing onions is a gradual process, and so I could see how what one calls "caramelized onions" could be seen as a matter of degree. With candy making, as a parallel, there are degrees of hardness; with roux there's different degrees of browning, etc. etc. etc. You're probably right, because at some point early on something very very roughly resembling "caramelized onions" is achieved, which is basically the same as "fried onions." People assumed because the onions resembled what they were familiar with in fried onions, they must be the same, even though they're not.