The interface can be swapped out if the underlying storage is fine. There is nothing preventing you from writing a different front end where “checkout” doesn’t do all the things.

Which is why there are dozens of Git front-ends, fragmenting the market, reducing the benefit of cross-training within a team. "Oh, you can't do that in your TortoiseStudioCodeThingy? I just right-click and select Frobnicate File, and it fixes all that!"

Thus editor wars, language wars...

Alternative: a tool like Fossil where the CLI is sensible from jump so the whole team doesn't replace it with something better, uniquely per team member.

> There is nothing preventing you from writing a different front end

Or you could just use a tool where the interface is fine out of the box

Yet no one is doing it.