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Or maybe there was never any difference at all? Maybe there's never been any legitimacy to the searches for 'missing links' because no links were ever missing, right?
Not quite. Yes, there is no real difference between an earthbound life-form or a fossil and a "missing link", given that it is actually missing, because all life-forms are links in the evolutionary chain. We have some pieces but we don't have others. A missing link (e.g. archaeopteryx) ceases to be missing once it is found. So, you see, in some sense we can never "have" a missing link or it just wouldn't be missing. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
A missing link doesn't mean a dog giving birth to a banana (and never has). It means something that we aren't yet aware of that's in between two things we ARE aware of whose discovery would help us describe the evolutionary chain more completely. So, yes, we have not found ALL the missing links, and most likely never will, but some of the missing links have become found and are thus no longer missing. But to simplify this situation as "we have never found a single missing link" is at best confusion and at worst deception.