The idea that it's left-recursive is not changed by the existence of top-down operator precedence, or kleene stars, or right recursion. And it's not a weakness

The idea that it's left-recursive is not changed by the existence of top-down operator precedence, or kleene stars, or right recursion. And it's not a weakness, either- just one way to think about the problem which happens to map fairly naturally to how people think about expressions.