Watching this food fight from afar, I thought I would weigh in with an excerpt from a William Safire column:
In the initial coinage, the term was in no way synonymous with bimbo. “Enter the second wife: a decade or two younger than her husband, sometimes several inches taller, beautiful and very often accomplished,” wrote the unmarried Ms. Connelly. “The second wife certifies her husband’s status and, if possible given the material she has to work with, dispels the notion that men peak sexually at age 18. This trophy does not hang on the wall like a moose head — she works. Hard. For starters, she often has her own business.”
As a modern modifier, then, trophy most often means “bimbonic” when applied to women, though a second sense remains of “accomplished.” Applied to men, however, trophy is almost always complimentary. Not fair? “Life is unfair,” said President Kennedy, a trophy husband.
It’s “initial coinage” is not relevant at this point. Most people understand “trophy wife” to be perjorative. It implies home-wrecker or shallow or valueless beyond physical attractiveness or “bimbonic.” It’s an insult to the woman and the man who married her.