Good post OP; you've summed it up perfectly.

The sport has thrown up many fighters who were great jabbers.

In terms of the HWs, I think the two best were Sonny Liston & Larry Holmes.

They were both different, but very effective nonetheless.

Sonny had a ramrod jab that was slower, but very powerful & he used it to break his opponents down.

Larry had piston like jab that was faster & sharper, but not as hard, but crucially for him, his whole fight plan stemmed from his jab.

I can also think of other fighters from smaller weights & the not often mentioned Vernon Forrest springs to mind.

He used his jab to negate Shane Mosley's speed & that's another example of of the jab being used very effectively.

There's many other examples, but I don't want to waffle on forever.