I wouldn't say "never was". EV certs were an attempt to do exactly that for a time period of about 10 years. And many users were explicitly trained to trust EV

I wouldn't say "never was". EV certs were an attempt to do exactly that for a time period of about 10 years. And many users were explicitly trained to trust EV certs as indicating that the site was independently validated as trustworthy, during that time period.