I've lost track of the thread, because I don't know what you are talking about.
Who is saying
what doesn't exist?
The lower_bound you pointed to takes start/end iterators defining the partially-ordered range to examine.
The linked-to essay and the Wikipedia take array + size.
These are different APIs.
The latter - which is what this thread is about, IMO - is easier to implement because the sizes are always non-negative.
