The concept of a "license" has been introduced as part of the "bigging up" process.
Deep sigh - When I started flying a quarter of a century ago, it was a licence and it was a little yellow cardboard booklet which stated 'CAA cabin crew licence' on it and the name of the airline, in my case British Caledonian, within its covers was a list of all aircraft types you were qualified to operate on. I still have it together with a nice navy blue OAA licence which was issued to me on completion of my Gulf Air SEP exams. So while I'm sure you are correct in that they are no longer considered to be licences, they certainly were once! Should you feel you really need to see it to believe it, then pm me and I will e-mail a photocopy of it. When we refer to licences then, it is due to historical terms of reference.
What I fail to understand is why it upsets you all so much? What can it possibly matter what qualification we have to operate an aircraft or what name we give it? It is just a name - get over it because we have this same discussion every couple of thousand posts! It really does appear to be petty and small minded.