I think the comparison is a bit exaggerated. People generally know how to use ctrl+c and ctrl+v. Keyboard shortcuts aren't that nerdy, some of them are explained in the Windows 95 User Guide.
Meanwhile UI consistency is useful for everyone, not just nerds. I think optimising software for some minimal set of lowest-common-denominator use cases like this is a slippery slope.
It's kind of like asking why people don't just run irssi on ec2 if they don't want to be disconnected from IRC when they close their laptop: it just fixes it for a few nerds, not for anyone else.