That was my feeling as well. Even by the 24th century shows they didn't routinely beam to other areas of the ship unless there was some sort of emergency. Part of why it bothered me was the continuity error. But frankly a bigger part of it was why didn't they just walk to engineering, or wherever they were going to? There didn't seem to be any point when it was done that I could discern. The one scene I think of is when Lorca was showing Burnham engineering. I saw no reason he couldn't just escort her there on foot. It just didn't make a lot of sense to me.
I could maybe see turbolifts having some value within story since starships are pretty big and there are times crew may need to get somewhere quickly. Plus it's probably a space saver. They have ladders in the Jeffries tubes, but without turbolifts you'd probably need a stairway system instead of ladders, which would take up valuable space. With turbolifts you don't need stairwells, you have a quick mode of transportation in emergencies, and you still have ladders in the ship if you can't access the turbolifts.
Though I sometimes thought it a bit convenient that there was always a car waiting whenever someone approached the doors (well at least 98% of the time). I don't know about most people, but I'd love it if there was an elevator car waiting for me everytime I got to the door