FWIW I prefer rebasing locally (to squash/split/cleanup commits, or catch up to upstream) and merging remotely (create a merge commit at the completion of each work branch). I just wanted to get the info out there for those interested!

Good point. I think people don't realize just how much git is capable of doing. Pretty much any strategy can be made to work with git, and it's super extensible if you need it to be.

I generally follow your strategy myself as long as it's something small, but I think there's this meme out there that having merge commits in your branch is somehow shameful, when in reality it should celebrated as an accurate history.