Different engine manufacturers take their EPR guage references from different sections of the engine. If you fly a P and W powered 744, the EPR settings you see for similar stages of a flight are very diffrent from a RR powered 744. And if you fly a GE powered 744, you just have N1 displayed, which personally, I prefer.
Having spent the last 7 years flying an an Airbus type, the only time I look at the EPR guage is on the take off roll when PNF when checking the power is set. And all I do is make sure the guages read what is displayed as the reference thrust on the upper engine display. Our take off performance calcualtions don't even give us the reference EPR, so we trust the dispaly is accurate. I have no idea about the EPR settings for other stages of flight - if I'm using manual thrust I reference the power I need based on N1, the speed strip and speed trend vector. I used to fly an older bypass turbojet engined aircrat where the Flight Engineer had a P7 guage measured in inches of mercury. The only time they referenced this is on the takeoff roll to ensure the engines were performing as required. If the P7 was down a bit, he gave it a bit more lever movement. (The FEs had their own thrust levers in the VC10).
So, I would agree. EPR is largely irrelevant except to make sure the engines are performing as you need on takeoff.