I have no argument with that but history tells us that Bowe did not vacate the title to take a rematch with Holyfield.
After binning the WBC strap, Bowe firstly fought against Michael Dokes, then Jesse Ferguson.... and THEN he fought Holyfield.
I know you are not a fan of Lewis Gul but surely even you will concede that Dokes and Ferguson were not in the same league as Lennox. I'm also guessing that those two fights would've been no where near as lucrative considering the bad blood between Lewis & Bowe dating back to the Seoul Olympics.
Dokes is top 5, of the eighties in the 20. century, of Heavyweight in my opinion.
Maybe was one reason, that Lewis wasn't very media pushed or a big draw at that time. I've read, that the manager of Bowe was behind low risk route. I actually like Lewis, but he could have defend his titles against Byrd i December 2002. He also didn't want to fight against Klitschko (it was only because Johnson was injured) and let wait Mavrovic over a year.