EQ = Boost?

I remember this episode of EQ talk with an acquaintance some time back who was of the opinion that the EQ pedal is actually a booster unit with frequency manipulations. I disagreed with him to a certain extent because some EQ units do not offer a gain push. These are notable EQ units with no LEVEL or VOLUME control options. An example is seen above- MXR's 6-band EQ. The primary purpose of the EQ is frequency manipulation, if it comes with a little push in terms of volume or gain then it's a bonus. We therefore do not resort to EQ units as the first cut in boosting our signals. We have clean boosts to refer to for that purpose. 

Am I a big fan of the EQ pedal? I used to be EQ inclined when dealing with practice amps. I needed that extra magic so to speak, to compensate what could have been achieved by a bigger amp or a more feature laden amp in terms of tone. These days, even the smaller amps are quite competent in this aspect as they feature 3-band EQs as opposed to that single TONE knob.