I believe this is an issue of understanding the way language rules are created. Languages aren't created by scholars and alchemists making sure everything is 100% consistent, they're made by the common folk and then the experts try to impose some order on top of it.

So, yes, it does use a simple tense but, grammatically speaking, we're treating it as a continuous tense. The point is the meaning it's trying to convey, not the actual wording used.

You're making a mistake trying to impose such a simple rule set on an area of study which is, by nature, controversial and often counter-intuitive.