"What does make me nervous about big houses or financial media endorsing gold is I get the feeling people are getting lured into a trap."

That's exactly what I am afraid of. When they recommend GLD it may mean that GLD and SLV may be close to their end of Ponzi scheme collapse. And what that will do to the PM market is a big unknown. It may lead to more interventions and/or interference. It may lead to the immediate collapse of JP Morgan and all kind of chain reactions.

I rather prefer a normal recovery of the PM market first before we get this kind of end game scenarios.