Gears have a place in steampunk. A society that runs primarily on steam power is going to have a lot of gears. And the victorian garb comes from the narrow era between steam power and electricity, so it's not surprising that it's come to be integral to the aesthetic.

It certainly can be done badly. A shallow rendition of steampunk might have useless gears everywhere that aren't connected to anything. An AI generated steampunk aesthetic might look like that, because it doesn't understand mechanics and the uses of gears. Cheap etsy costume pieces might look like this because the seller only cares about making a buck. Bullshit pinterest inspo might look like this because the creators only care about reach and engagement.

But that doesn't make the -punk suffix misleading, it just means they're doing steampunk poorly.

Ghibli's Laputa is steampunk. Howl's Moving Castle has some steampunk elements. Those are pretty well done in my opinion.

Nausica is close to solarpunk, but it's more like windpunk which I don't know if has been coined yet.