My understanding is that Thunderbolt 3 cables should have the Thunderbolt logo on them.

And herein lies the rub of USB-C: It isn't a universal logical interface, it is a multi-use physical connector. By overloading the port's logical functions you introduce incompatible physical configurations.

There have always been charge-only USB cables, they're just not all that common (I believe many mice come with those for charging, but I don't know where else you'd get one). I agree that it is a problem for Apple to be shipping a charge-only USB-C cable, both because this significantly increases the number of charge-only cables in the wild, and because this is probably the first USB-C cable that their customers will have and it's confusing if it doesn't actually act as a generic USB-C cable.

FWIW, the only time I've seen charge-only USB cables is when they are permanently attached to a charging brick.

I'm pretty sure I have a charge-only Mini USB cable lying around in a drawer somewhere that came with an old mouse years ago.

Charge-only Mini USB connectors are a different question. They're possible to build, but non-compliant. Charge-only USB C cables are part of the standard. The difference is that you can only blame cable confusion problems on the standard in the latter case.

It's not a Thunderbolt issue. It's about supporting "DisplayPort Alternate Mode." This particular monitor doesn't support Thunderbolt.

Steve would be pissed.

The cables or ends should almost be colored blue. It might help if there was a color code to all the cables and ports

Kinda like how Apple's USB3 ports are not colored blue, for aesthetics... ?

2 and 3 are both doozies. #2 makes that setup basically unusable.