I always found it weird to ship a BASIC interpreter that didn't have specialised commands (unless you count POKE) to access the graphics and sound capabilities of a computer like the C64. Some computers of the same era had vastly superior BASICs (such as Sinclair BASIC).

OTOH, I learned a hell of a lot about microprocessor internals by using POKE.

I agree, it seems very low-effort on Commodore's part to license this lowest-common-denominator BASIC with no support for graphics and sound other than POKE. Super lame, but they got away with it.