I agree that there is a lot of bad information out there which is why options education is the key to being successful. You’re absolutely right about covered calls in that you are on the hook for all of the downside risk. After all, you own the stock.
But most investors fail to see it that way. They just find the option with the highest time premium and buy the stock just so they can collect the high premium. It’s a potential high reward strategy; it’s also carries a lot of risk. So how do professional traders counter this? There are several ways. First, you should write calls against stock that you would be comfortable holding even if options didn’t exist. That way, it shows you’re willing to assume all of the downside risk. Writing calls against this type of holding becomes a conservative use of the covered call strategy since you’re collecting a premium up front and providing a small downside hedge. The inclusion of the short call doesn't add any downside risk to the position - that risk was already there and willing to be assumed.
But for those times that you may want to collect a high time premium, professional traders will hedge the position somehow. We may buy puts (collar strategy) or sell spreads against the long stock position. There are numerous ways to protect the downside while maintaining room for profits.
We can also look at positions synthetically and realize that a covered call combined with a protective put is really a vertical spread. By purchasing the vertical spread, we have only two commissions and two bid-ask spreads rather than three but we end up with the same profit and loss profile. Vertical spreads are a great substitute for covered calls that provide immediate downside protection.
Bill