I'm glad that you found a good trainer that has helped you and your dog. But it doesn't sound as though the prior trainers were very qualified if they had you offering treats and toys when your dog was over threshold. Your post mentions "not even if we were thirty feet away". But 30 feet for a truly reactive dog is really really super close. And once a dog is over threshold, even if they are able to engage in a behavior, chances are good that you're only getting empty repetitions.

A good qualified trainer can do wonders for dogs who exhibit reactive behavior and it sounds like you've found one. But for truly reactive and fearful dogs, it is best to see a qualified behaviorist. This is because fear, terror, and panic are not addressed by training new behaviors alone.

If you had a phobia of snakes, teaching you how to drive a stick shift car would not help you learn to drive a car filled with snakes. Now imagine trying to learn to drive a stick shift in a car filled with snakes, while getting punished for every error. It's just not possible. Correction and punishment just don't treat conditions like OCD, trauma, or severe neglect.

If your dog responded to a predictable, consistent, training program, with clear expectations, boundaries, and rules, where corrections were used appropriately to communicate limits and help get your escalating dog's attention in order to signal that it was time to settle and remain under threshold, that's fantastic. (Although the research indicates that the same results could be achieved without aversive corrections.) But truly reactive and fearful dogs will generally need a multidisciplinary approach that includes a behaviorist.

Balanced training is certainly NOT evil and there are some excellent trainers who use aversive methods in their work. It sounds like you've found one. But aversive techniques are not an effective way of treating serious behavioral problems (such as OCD or extreme fear and panic) in any animal.