This is only one half of the story, the deductive investigation. The other half is the psychological thriller: we can observe the murderers, who just committed an (almost) perfect crime, and who are strong and confident in the beginning, to slowly crack under the pressure put on them by Columbo, to make mistakes that finally lead to their arrest. This is not just great drama to watch, but also instrumental in Columbo's success, and you can't replicate that when you work on software (or anything other than humans). The points you listed are still useful, of course.