If you're claiming there's "isn't much evidence" indicating aerosol transmission, I would once again encourage you to read the article closely. There are several well-documented case clusters cited in the article where infections could really ONLY be explained by some degree of aerosol transmission. But aerosols vs. droplets aren't a black-and-white situation: people expel a whole range of different particle sizes, and where we draw the line between droplets and aerosols is largely arbitrary (small droplets just above that line behave much the same as big aerosols just below it).
Small "droplets" can travel some distance too. 6 feet isn't a magical boundary beyond which droplets completely vanish. Nor do particles just below the aerosol vs droplet threshold magically become non-infectious. There's a continuum of behavior. Public health authorities KNOW all this, and have known it from the beginning. But they also know that the public needs simple, clear guidance to take action. So, they have to simplify their explanations and inevitably some detail will be lost.
What we know now is that smaller particles (short-distance aerosols) play a bigger role than initial data suggested. But the evidence still suggests SARS-CoV-2 usually requires pretty close contact or circumstances that concentrate aerosols: limited ventilation on cruise ships, for example, or people singing for an extended period (producing a much higher volume of aerosols).
> I don't deny that if someone with COVID coughs directly in your face which apparently was considered the dominant transmission vector at first
This is not even REMOTELY what "droplet transmission" means. If that was what it took, NOBODY would be getting sick. Droplet transmission can come from talking, or being near someone yelling a drink order in a bar, sharing a cab, attending a dinner party, etc. It just implies fairly close contact.
> Anyway my quibble with your post was the part about the guidelines being the same. They aren't really. The difference may be slight, but it could be critical.
Every single piece of public health advice is imperfect, because they have to simplify complex situations. None of the original safety measures were actually WRONG -- all help protect against short-distance aerosols. The new evidence just adds another layer to the situation, and places extra emphasis on certain measures.
If the public and politicians had actually followed the original public health guidance, the situation would look much better than it does today.