I would think that the skillet would be harder to clean after you’ve let the food dry onto it and then reheated it later. Do you find yourself doing a lot of scouring?
It’s me - the OP again.
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Thanks for all of the comments and so far it looks like we are only kinda sorta weird. Just like re-living high school again.
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The skillet in question, as mentioned, is a newer model from Wolfgang Puck’s line and the glass lid fits quite tightly on the top - no need to fear unnecessary odors seeping out.
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While we do have a large fridge, the main reason we can find space is that having lived in Europe so long, we tend to go grocery shopping every other day and buy only what we will be using in the next couple of days - hence, we always have ample space on at least one shelf to push things aside for the skillet.
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Mostly we do this with spaghetti sauce, mixed noodle dishes, some recipes from cook books with chicken and wine sauces - in other words, food that has a thick consistency and therefore would be messy to scoop into a plastic container and then have to scoop back out into another skillet the next day. Not so much “lazy” as what we consider practical.
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We also have a large microwave, but find the food tastes better if it is reheated in the original skillet on a low flame - the flavor intensifies and usually it tastes even better the next day.
At any rate - sounds like my aunt wasn’t all that off-base with her comment and this is something that few people do. Oh well…for those of you have never tried it, give it a go - you might find it saves time, saves having to wash an additional skillet and plastic container and it even tastes better to re-heat slowly over low heat.
Actually…
It’s probably not as much of a food safety issue as it sounds. Assuming he got whatever was in there nice and hot (say, boiling for 10 minutes), and that the lid was on during the process, everything in there was sterile at that point. Of course, taking off the lid breaks the seal and allows airborne bacteria entry, and if the lid isn’t fairly tight, there’s another entryway for bacteria - but if the lid wasn’t off for long and it didn’t sit out more than a day and it was heated again before serving, I’d eat it.
My in-laws’ roast turkey that sits out for 30 minutes before carving, gets all cut up at once and placed on the table where it’s circled by people breathing on it for a two hour meal and then wrapped in foil and put into a lukewarm cooler for us to take home? hurrrrrk No thanks, I’ll have Chinese guy’s leftovers instead! 
Never leave acid foods on an aluminum or copper surface. It’s bad for you.