It is. And I am glad to hear that you've taken additional measures to gain life saving skills.
CCW training is merely familiarization with the justified use (or threatened use) of lethal force and includes coverage of those State statutes which govern such use. It is not defensive handgun training, as you point out.
Lott's big thing is liberalized concealed carry and the effect it has on discouraging multiple victim massacres. (See his joint paper with Landes on this very topic.) It's a numbers game for him. I am interested in discrete events and favorable outcomes.
I encourage every one to not short shrift the training budget. Many buy weapon after weapon, burn through a ton of ammo and punch lots of holes in paper targets, but never learn to fight effectively with a weapon. Firearms training constitutes a triad of skills -- marksmanship, tactics and field craft. Most know little about the latter two.
I have been shooting for over 50 years, and can say I have been a marksman for over 40. But I have only in the last 15 years been a continuing student of “defensive” shooting.
I am an NRA instructor in almost every discipline the NRA teaches, but my real defensive shooting has been through professional schools like Front Sight, Nevada. I am not a combat master by any means, but I am a distinguished graduate of a few of their defensive shooting courses, and have advanced tactics training.
For pistol courses, everything at the school is done from the holster. A typical test is controlled pairs to center of mass from the holster in under a second, maybe 1.5 seconds as range increases to beyond 20 yards. You learn from the git-go how to draw properly and not muzzle friendlies, how to be aware before the fight, survive the fight, and not get shot by late arriving law enforcement after the gun fight. Malfunctions are drilled so that handling them is instinctive, day or night. Night shooting involves managing both gun and light. The list goes on and on.
I currently live in a state/county where the county will not issue CCW (unless you are a politician). So I had years of training before even considering a CCW. I took the Utah course, which still doesn’t help me in my state, but seemed like a good thing for traveling. As I said, I was pretty unimpressed with the competence bar set for people to obtain a permit. While being accurate and fast is important, knowing how to run/fight the gun, and stay alive after the fight are probably just as important if not more so. None was required for the CCW permit.