Hi @EmilyRivera
I think you are overthinking the default deal stages. The appointment scheduled stage is not intended to be the first ever meeting, and ultimately HubSpot needs to provide some defaults.
Across the 100+ customers I have worked with, not one is working with the defaults and ideally deal stages should represent each companies individual sales process(es) and represent completed actions, e.g. “proposal sent” vs “send proposal”.
Hope that helps.
Frank