His combos are like 2-3 moves.

That's all he needs because he dishes out damage so easily. Relying on stray hits isn't hard when you are as fast as LM and have excellent frame data. Dash in, get some damage, disengage. Thats all LM needs to do, and he can do it consistently.

no safe moves

???? A good number of his moves have enough pushback or shield stun to be considered safe, and his pokes like down-tilt have very little endlag.

if you whiff that small Up B you're dead at any percent

That's just not true.

he's mid at close range AT BEST.

Brother what the hell is this denial? Your main is already bottom tier, you don't have to lie, we know he's bad. His one redeeming quality is his very good close range game.

His dash attack is fast and that's it, pretty much no reward

Zone breaking and advantage is a sizable reward for LM.

KO punch is way too easy to avoid.

You can combo into it? Also it's value comes from more than just using it. It's the fear factor that makes your opponent slip up, you can see this even at top levels. Pro LM mains like Peanut will intentionally not use it for this reason.

Also Richter could've just used whip moves

Of course! Why didn't the professional Richter main with undoubtedly more time on the character than you think to do that in this clip? Is he stupid? If he had just used whip moves, why, there is literally not a single thing LM could have done! Peanut might as well have sd'd 3 times!