Your post was very interesting, what is it about traditional aerobics that makes you think it is excessive and counterproductive to health?
I have to admit my experience with Aerobics was in the late 80's, so my opinions could be somewhat outdated. Whenever I attended an Aerobics class (3 times in total because I had a thing for the instructor) it was almost a sustained effort at a heart rate we now know is not optimal for either performance gains or recovery. I was a semi pro cyclist at the time and also among the first wave of people using heart rate monitors.
So after getting a feel for what it's like to train in different heart rate zones I almost instantly realised the form of Aerobics I tried was being carried out at a much higher rate than what was optimal for everyone in the class with the possible exception of the instructor and myself. I was also being trained by a coach who liaised with a leading sports scientist from a local university and all the data we were gathering was indicating those elevated heart rate zones were far from optimal.
We were also being monitored for blood gasses and inflammatory markers and consistently found there was threshold that was easily crossed and doing just a bit too much can have a dramatic negative effect on recovery and performance.
It didn't have a name at the time as far I know but our training evolved to follow a similar approach to what Maffetone uses today, albeit with slightly higher heart rate zones for the base aerobic work.
We were getting consistently better results than most of the competition by doing lower heart rate base Aerobic work combined with several sessions of interval work each week.
Fast forward 25 years or so and and most of the early observations we were making have been vindicated and refined by the likes of Maffetone etc.
So when I look at S&S I see the culmination of years of work and data gathered by sports scientists all around the globe. It revolves around training at specific heart rate zones that are compatible with long term health.
In comparison Aerobics (what I tried anyway) was much more haphazard and over the top for over 90% of those doing the classes.