I've never been able to reconcile the opinions about GSF. People tend to characterize them as very different from other sunfish to the extent that they are usually treated as trash fish. A Lepomis trash fish! Whereas people go to great lengths to manage BG and RES, GSF are rarely targeted for anything but removal despite some very positive attributes. Maybe Bob's story holds the answer to the prejudice against Greenies.

Since almost nobody manages for GSF, people's opinions are mostly based on naturally occurring populations. Often in these cases the GSF are the dominant species and they are stunted. This probably gave rise to the common wisdom that GSF are small and more prone to stunting than other Lepomis. We know that GSF can grow to over 2 lbs and that all Sunfish will overpopulate and stunt given certain conditions.

Maybe the key to all this is the Green Sunfish's ability to survive when other fish die. This would be a factor more often in unmanaged waters where we usually find the stunted GSF.

"The green sunfish are the most widely distributed and adaptable sunfish and tolerate a wide range of conditions (high turbidity, low dissolved oxygen and high alkalinity) (Childers 1967; Tomelleri and Eberle 1990). This wide tolerance usually results in their overpopulation and suppression of native
sunfish populations." ARTICLE

It seems like the thing that makes GSF "trash" is that they are the most hardy of sunfishes. So in summary we have a sunfish with a large mouth, that eats aggressively, tastes very good, fights well on light tackle, can exceed 2 lbs, and can survive events that would kill other sunfish. I don't see how the term "trash" can fit in with that list.