I think there are two separate issues:
(1) The label PUA and who uses it for what purpose.
(2) Individual beliefs hold by the crowd that calls itself PUA.
I have a handful facebook friends who I have meet face to face who make money in the male dating advise market. I have got to know them in different personal development contexts. Not one of them likes to be called a PUA and there are reasons for why that's the case.
It often happens that guys who have little success with women read PUA material and then buy into the marketing promise. They want to believe and then argue for PUA. At that point it can make sense to point out that they have a false idea of what PUA happens to be.
Look at Mystery, he's an archtypical PUA, who self labels that way. The guy can approach. He even can do it successfully. As far as I know he never lost approach anxiety. That's in itself no big deal, but the guy is depressed. His fate is not a state that the usual person who buys into the PUA marketing myth wants to achieve. Quite many guys, also don't have the consciousness required to even get those kinds of results.
That's the label. When it comes to individual techniques and beliefs, you don't need to use the PUA label to discuss them. It's useful to discuss social skills and we do so from time to time.
I agree that the "PUA" label has some problems, but I'd still consider it very much worthwhile. Talking about "dating advice" just doesn't pinpoint much about what cluster of beliefs, techniques and attitudes you're referring to. Yes, some folks may have false expectations about PUA, but a broader and more confusing label is likely to score worse on this metric, not better.
Also, Mystery is definitely not a typical case among PUAs. The book The Game describes his depression in detail, in a way that makes this quite clear. Overall, PUA...
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