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All about how you make use of it.
Your point contains within it the idea that college/university is not automatically superior to trade school. I applaud and agree with that sentiment.
So if I talk a lot about trade school as a viable option, which I do, then it's from a place of, too many people dismiss it out of hand and insist on sending every kid to college. Whether it's a good fit for their plans or not. And irrespective of where our job vacancies in the most urgent need of filling, and often the lucrative incomes with the best job security, are increasingly found for young people on finishing their schooling.
We actually need to ne pushing for people to go to college more for certain things like RNs and medical care in generally.  Not saying trade school isn't a bad things at all but there's a huge shortage in RNs. And teachers to. >

The same concept applies to trades. >

The people who keep advocating for trade schools forget that what they're doing is exactly why college degrees lost so much value and became so expensive. Everyone starts wanting a trade certificate or whatever? Suddenly a lot of sleezy ones pop up, valid ones jack up the price and introduce feature-creep, etc.  
Not to mention that not only are you increasing your competition in the trades (thus driving down profits), you're also eliminating customers because everyone who gets that certification and moves to a completely different field is now someone who will fix their own shit instead. >

Keep in mind this is the internet and people often are black/white about issues. I think it's great that trades are being pushed more though. I'm not in a trade, but most of my friends are and it's done them well. I may be wrong, but I suspect a lot of the people are speaking from a grass is greener perspective. Ie. they were a college grad whose post grad didn't turn out as expected so they start idealizing trade work.
You are right that a lot of the rhetoric resembles what was sold to kids post 2000s on going to college. You also cannot just waltz in to trade school and walk out with 80k job. This is the same thing as going into college and claiming everyone can walk out getting a 6 figure IB job by studying finance. Trades are still a form of skilled labor just like IB is and some are more cut out for it than others, some make better decisions while in school etc. As of now we DO need more people in trades, but some people are simply not cut out for it and/or would be better suited going to college as we do need in white collar fields as well. >

Are there stats on how many people stay in their respective trades after leaving vocational schools? Because I swear I know only like two people who work in the trade they learned while in vocational school. Almost everyone else I know that went never did anything along the lines of what they studied in school. >

This is why I'm against trade schools for high school students. My experience was a lot of money was put into the programs and nearly none of the students ever continued in the trade for very long. Most were not employed in the trade they trained in a year after graduation. The exceptions were the certified nurse's assistant and veterinary technician program. 
We had a program that trained high school students to be certified in aviation manufacturing. It was rather expensive. The kids just weren't leaving high school and going straight into aviation manufacturing. Same thing when the carpentry and the plumbing and the agriculture programs. The students might learn plenty. But it's not translating into them jumping into the professional workforce post high school. >

You’re 100% correct. Medicine specifically has a huge disparity in labor and can only be solved through easing higher education in medicine. >

Exactly, Trades should definitely get more love than they do and are a better option for a lot of people, but for some people college would be a better option. Neither are a golden ticket. 
People seem to understand that not everyone is cut out to be an investment banker, software engineer, lawyer, doctor, or work a white collar professional office job. The same concept applies to trades. A nerdy kid who was good at school, never had experience with blue collar labor and primary interests are video games and browsing reddit wouldn’t have better chances in a trade than college for the most part. >

It literally depends on the person on whats best >

That's what I mean bro. It depends. Every job is important and not one is superior or inferior. My comment was more on those that looked down on the option of college/university just because they go to trade school which shouldn't be the case