While that is true, there is really no need to make it (deliberately?) harder by withholding relevant examples, applications, and historical background.

No one is deliberately withholding them out of malice. Practical applications are often convoluted and complicated or too forced. It is like wanting to do triple flips on trampoline before you can jump to sit on it. The sport analogy hold for historical background too - it sometimes help or makes it more interesting, but most often helps as much as knowing history of flips helps to learn flips.

Contrary to what you say, practical applications are easy to be found where they are simple and helpful. They make for fun math hobbyist like to play with and that works nice in terms of making kids interested in math. Unfortunately they do not lead to cutting edge science nor math needed for physics and engineering.