That might be strictly true, but payment channels were named as a motivation in the BIP.
Bitcoin’s most popular technical journalist at the time, Aaron Van Wirdum, wrote in 2015:
As perhaps its most important function, CLTV is necessary for properly functional payment channels.
Prior to CLTV’s deployment.
As an aside, turning every discussion into another opportunity to rail about vaults has been destroying your reputation and creating a hostile environment around you. Please reconsider your approach.
Touchy! Though you forgot about the “scaling UTXO ownership” rant too ;).