"and yet, in practice, it doesn't matter that much (most of the time)"

It does not matter? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management

Options far out of the market are underpriced. Mandelbrot, investing on the stockmarket is riskier than you think. But then, the opposite must also be true. It can be more lucrative than expected. I currently hold some far out of the money options. Unfortunately, the underlying stock goes against me :-(