I think you misinterpret me. I'm not saying you should use it all the time, but even at high level play people get away with gaps in strings all the time.
You need insane yomi or reactions to punish all.
And also I agree with most of what you said.
If the move was fast and led to a quick follow up or even had some application then sure. Look at Sonya for example, they all use b14 regardless of the gap.
Compare it to Bo though, Sonya's is a frame slower but hits from about 2 character spaces and is an overhead. Bo's 4 whiffs if you're point blank and shimmy back a step starts high and has no inherent mixup unless you count the 'mixup' between 413 or or 41xxdb3.
I'm also fairly sure Sonya can make herself safe in every variation should you block the b14 with a special cancel meterlessly though i'm assuming she'd need a drone or a grenade to do so not to mention she can actually make b14 jail from max range.
Bo can't make himself safe at all unless you spend a bar on special cancelling the low but even then you are forced to cancel into ex puke as anything else can be armoured as it has a second gap so you'll still be minus after spending meter that he relies on.
I just don't see why it would be used at all unless i'm missing something?