If there is only one panel in the house that both the generator and all of the loads are connected too then what you said is absolutely correct in that there is no difference because in that panel the ground will be tied to the neutral and of course there is a will be a ground rod that ties the neutral and ground conductors to earth ground.
Where the stickyness comes in is if there are two panels where one feeds the other. The first panel in series with the meter will have the neutral and ground tied together. Per the modern code the second panel will have 4 wires feeding it, 2 hots, 1 insulated neutral and 1 bare ground with the neutral and bare seperated.
If he hooks his generator to the second panel with only three wires (2 hots, 1 bare ground) then the 120V current will flow from the generator on the ground wire to the second panel and then back to first panel over the ground conductor where it will bridge over to the neutral conductor and flow back to the second panel to feed those loads. As long as everything is intact it works. There is a possibility of some stray voltage being present on the ground bus in the second panel to earth ground. I suspect that it would be minimal since I believe it would be mostly due to the 120V load current produced by the generator times the resistance of the copper ground conductor from the second panel to the first panel. That resitance will be very low.
The danger comes in if the ground conductor opens up between the second panel and the first panel. In that case the ground bus in the second panel would be energized with at least 120V and if the ground bus is energized then everything that is connected to it is energized as well like dryer frames, stoves frames, etc.
Now in an emergency situation he can just live with the risk or he could temporarily bond the neutral and ground together in the second panel, like you pointed out it was done that way for many years.
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