To be fair, this project is not a CL Emacs. It's a separate editor doing its own thing that happens to share the same keybinds and a few architectural decisions.
Sure, I get what you mean. Reminds me of the whole "GNU plus Linux" thing. I think it's more a matter of setting expectations, a lot of users come in expecting it to behave like or be compatible with GNU Emacs, when it's not trying to do that. What comes to my head when I think of "CL Emacs" is a CL variant of a project like Guile Emacs, Remacs, etc. and not a standalone editor. You're right, but I'd venture to say most hear the word "Emacs" and only associate it with GNU Emacs.
long history of that that predates GNU emacs, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zmacs