Because no one would bother reading about it if it was ever called The Minor Hyperspace Skirmish which was over and done by tea time.

It was basically because up until the GHW, the Republic never fought anything beyond planetary squabbles and civil wars. Or as Jedi Master Ooroo put it.

"The Republic has grown and expanded for many generations, encountering no worse than a few interplanetary squabbles and civil wars…but if we should confront the fabled Sith Empire, we will experience a war so great, so devastating…it can cross the fabric of hyperspace, a conflagration spanning the galaxy…"