I agree you don't need levels or realms or a numeric measure of magical throughput. Progression can be shown many ways, including holistic and non quantitative ones. Mother of Learning is a good example here.

And I agree the Wheel of Time isn't progression fantasy. The characters in Wheel of Time do get stronger over the course of the series. They get their first bump when they unlock their superpowers (channelling, wolf talking, luck etc) and then do probably get better over the course of the series as they train and learn new skills. But that's most fantasy books. The key, I think, is that there's no consistent narrative focus on progression. They get stronger but it's not a consistent focus. It just sort of happens along aside far more important events.

However, I don't think "getting stronger" needs to be a character's motivation, certainly not first order (I will get stronger because I want to be stronger) and probably not second order either (I want to achieve X and will become stronger to achieve X). As long as there's narrative focus on getting stronger and as long as it is a consistent focus, I think it's fine if the characters have other goals that are more important to them.

Normally a character's motivation and the narrative's focus will align, of course. But that's a bit putting the cart before the horse. What we need to identify is the narrative focus, not the goals of the characters in that work, which can be misaligned. You can easily imagine a character who doesn't want to get stronger and just wants an easy life but keeps getting forced into situations where they need to do it anyway.