> Among mainstream users, people just don't care and this isn't remotely the differentiator people seem to hold it as.

I agree that most users don't consciously care, but I think its definitely possible that it influences how fast the phone feels and could influence purchases if you are testing them side-by-side in a store. There is some anecdotal evidence to that in the fact that Google does the extremely scummy thing of locking their non-pro Pixels to 60Hz when in demo mode regardless of the refresh rate setting chosen in the OS.