No, I don't think that eliminates the point of the reconcile function at all, and yes, I think that perhaps you have missed something. Downloading transactions and balances from banks/brokers/credit cards simplifies and speeds up reconciliation.
Of course if ALL you do is download transactions then there is nothing to reconcile against. If you enter transactions manually, daily, weekly or monthly, then each time you download you quickly get to do an "interim" reconciliation. I find that very useful. Then when you get a statement from the financial institution reconciliation should take only a few seconds!
Of course some people do think that mistakes are so rare and so insignificant that it isn't worth entering transactions yourself and having them compared to the downloaded transactions. That isn't my preference, but that is why we have freedom of choice.
Bernie