LoRs are just another advantage for students who attend well resourced high schools. Most HS counselors don’t know their students well. Some might use brag sheets to help inform a letter, but many, maybe most, just fill out the Naviance or Scoir forms and don’t write anything approaching an LoR.
Average student to counselor ratio in the US is somewhere in the 450:1 range. Most counselors have social emotional counseling responsibilities which take precedence over college counseling…and many of these counselors have never been trained in college counseling.