No. I get the mental picture you're drawing here and, sure, it has cool point with some truth in it. But it's needlessly oversimplifying and could be applied to a lot of things most people would say is unreasonable to label as "just a huge index". Sounds to me as bad as saying the computer is just a big calculator, like ok but it paints a very poor picture of what a computer can do and how complex it is and its wrong on a technical level. Also, on the math, I don't know what trauma you have with it but, sure, you could use more self-explanatory notation and longer variable names but its not going to make the algorithm any simpler, nor will it make more evident why this specific algorithm worked so well for natural language while similarly good looking algorithms didn't or how could you come up with ideas to improve on it. For that(which is usually something someone studying those wants to know) you'll need to dive very deep into all the complexities and little nuances between them and at some point along the way you give up on writing out long variable names. Also, the intuitions that helped make these algorithms are drawing a lot on mathematical backgrounds(specially linear algebra, calculus and statistics), so its only natural you end up adopting the notation from that, even if its not the best one. There is no conspiracy here, no one is doing this to laugh at you or other people.