Toi: Just because it’s a lack of respect from our standards doesn’t make it a lack of respect to everyone else’s. What if his audience would see not referring to the Rishonim by their academic names as a lack of respect for the author because you’re going against convention? I don’t see following convention as ever being inherently insulting.
It’s like a Sephardi I know once got offended when I referred to the Yeshivah as Poras Yosef (with both words Mil’eil). But if I would call it Porat Yosef (Mil’ra) in conversation with my Ashkenazi friends it might sound funny. It changing how you talk to a Sephardi insulting the Yeshivah by not referring to it the same way as I would refer to it in normal conversation? Adjusting how you speak for your audience is just what you do to get your point across. It is never inherently insulting or derogatory. Do you honestly think for a second that if he was giving a Shiur or talking in private that Rabbi Lamm would refer to the Rashba as anything but “The Rashba”? If you think otherwise then you don’t know enough about Rabbi Lamm to accurately accuse him of anything.