The evolutionary improbability of 'generalism' in nature, with special reference to insects

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Ecological specialization matters: long‐term trends in butterfly species richness and assemblage composition depend on multiple functional traits (2015, background): “Furthermore, a species may be a specialist on one resource, for example larval host plants, but a generalist for another, for example habitat type (Loxdale et al., 2011; Dennis, 2012; Dapporto & Dennis, 2013).”
Characterizing trophic ecology of generalist consumers: a case study of the invasive lionfish in The Bahamas (2012, background): “Recently, a renewed interest into characterization of generalist species has emerged (Araújo et al. 2011, Bolnick et al. 2011, Clavel et al. 2011, Loxdale et al. 2011).”
The generalism-specialism debate: the role of generalists in the life and death of species (2011, methodology): “Also, it is very possible that it ‘cannot be maintained over the longer evolutionary term’ (Loxdale et al., 2011), although that perhaps is a questionable issue from the vantage of the ecological fitting hypothesis (Agosta, Janz & Brooks, 2010), which describes the variance in tolerance of species t”