It does simplify things in places. One thing that isn't covered is that a code point is not necessarily a letter or vice versa. E.g. a single letter/symbol/emoji/whatever can be made up of multiple code points. So it isn't quite true that one "platonic" letter is one code point (it may or may not be).
If you deal with strings in Python 3 it kinda forces this distinction on you and I think is right to do so. It makes you painfully aware when you're assuming the world is utf-8.