Smooth motion is definitely a big factor. Just look at things in terms of how fast something on screen (eg. the cursor) is moving in terms of pixels per frame.
Moving a cursor horizontally across a 4k display in a relatively slow one second is 64 pixels per frame at 60Hz, which is significantly wider than the cursor itself. At 144Hz it's about 26 pixels per frame, and at 280Hz it would be about 14 pixels per frame.
Even if you have a low-persistence display, you need to have a pretty high refresh rate to draw smooth motion. Hardly anything needs to be animated all the way down at 1 pixel per frame, but hardly anything currently comes at all close to that ideal strobe-free smoothness.
Moving a cursor horizontally across a 4k display in a relatively slow one second is 64 pixels per frame at 60Hz, which is significantly wider than the cursor itself. At 144Hz it's about 26 pixels per frame, and at 280Hz it would be about 14 pixels per frame.
Even if you have a low-persistence display, you need to have a pretty high refresh rate to draw smooth motion. Hardly anything needs to be animated all the way down at 1 pixel per frame, but hardly anything currently comes at all close to that ideal strobe-free smoothness.