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>diagnosis of Asperger's was unreliable and therefore useless

If this is true, then in what way is the diagnosis of autism reliable, that the Asperger's label was not?

Asperger's was not reliably diagnosable between healthcare workers trained to diagnose it. In other words, a diagnosis of Asperger's in someone's medical chart was not a reliable way of knowing if they had Asperger's.

This isn't really providing any clarity to the question, since you're simply restating your previous claim. How is a diagnosis of autism any more reliable?

As in it has a higher inter rater reliability. The statistical term of reliability that is used when describing the likelihood to reproduce a measure under similar conditions.

What matters here is not the general inter-rater reliability for all autism diagnoses, but only those for the patients which would have otherwise been described as having Asperger's, which can often present as a very mild disorder. Given that many Asperger's cases are mild, it is no surprise that there is low inter-rater reliability. Is there evidence that for this type of individual, there is a higher inter-rater reliability with the diagnosis of "autism"?

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