The alignment of text is aptly named text-align, so the alignment of anything else other than text would surely also be aptly named as well, something other than text-align, even if it does the same thing. The alignment of objects, inputs for example would be aptly be named object-align or input-align. Why is the alignment of non-text elements called text-align? Makes no sense.
I am pretty sure that text-align controls how inline boxes are laid out. Originally, most inline boxes were just text, but now you can make almost anything that with display: inline; or display: inline-block;. If it could be fixed, it would probably have a name similar to flexbox’s justify-content. Maybe something like inline-content-align. But… I think it’s a bit late to try to change this ;-).
I don’t disagree that its more than a bit late, but I just wanted to point it out anyway.