There's a lot more to data structures and algorithms than sorting. For example, just knowing that bloom filters or interval trees exist opens up a ton of option

There's a lot more to data structures and algorithms than sorting. For example, just knowing that bloom filters or interval trees exist opens up a ton of options, even if you don't implement them yourself. For that matter, the choice of sorting algorithm can have security implications. QuickSort on user-facing data can easily become a DoS vulnerability.