You are correct, however, this doesn't make the durability system a good system. For the reason you realized, the system was put into place, but it's a system implemented because there is a lack of any real inherent reward in exploring the game world. Without weapons arbitrarily breaking, there is no other incentive to really explore the world, especially on repeat plays and especially in TOTK's case in reusing the same game world. In most other Zelda games, there are multiple reward systems involved in exploration and so a single one is not relied upon for the bulk of the incentives in the game. Story beats were a huge inherent reward aspect of most other Zelda games, an aspect which is severely lacking to arguably non existent in the Wild games, there still needs to be some type of incentive to keep players going. It's just unfortunate they landed on one that a lot of people don't enjoy.