As a manual motor starter, it is not expected to be the Branch Short Circuit and Ground Fault Protection Device, it would be used down stream of another one somewhere. As a Type 2 controller,
it must act as the branch SCPD and therefore will be expected to survive the act of interrupting the fault (within the stated limitations).
I too feel that the issue with the Mike Holt statement is just because of age. Slash rated breakers have only recently become an issue as more and more of the small cheap MCBs became rated for 480V. Before that, they were limited to 230V applications in North America, even though they had higher ratings per IEC standards. Most had only UL1077 listings as "supplemental protection" (if anything), which, just like the above issue, meant that they had to have another SCPD ahead of them. What changed was that somewhere around 2004-2005 several of the mfrs went after UL489 listings as stand-alone circuit breakers, but could not hold up to the rigors of delta power systems asymmetrical fault forces, leaving them with the 480/277V ratings, and UL changed their rules to allow it, as long as they were not misused. Once that became somewhat acceptable, some of the other mfrs then started doing the same on their MCCBs as well, which began to muddy the water. This then resulted in forcing the NEC to try to make it clearer, I think in the 2005 code. I was working for Siemens at the time, it was a mess because a number of the bottom feeder players were not properly understanding the issues and selling them willy-nilly as "cheaper" breakers, which lead to contractors and OEMs getting into trouble in the field. Still happens actually, but not as much.
PS: spacing between the poles is also an issue as well, but many were able to overcome that by adding barriers between the poles that must be installed in the field after connecting the conductors. They just make a simple little dovetail slot in the frame and the barriers slide in. Here's an example (on the left).
View attachment 11687
That doesn't fix the other issues however.