> in reality that means that the market is willing to pay for those transactions to occur which suggests that there is some real utility

It means that it is useful for those who can afford the absurd gas prices for just about any operation on Ethereum than those who are sending small amounts to perhaps test before permanently sending their money to a dead wallet and paying the gas fee too.

So it makes sense for someone to pay >= $1,000 in fees to approve and move / swap $1 - $100 worth of tokens? That is not 'real utility'. It makes it really useless.