Well, the order of the arguments does matter. Sorting three values requires 2.67 comparisons where clamping a value between two other values requires exactly 2. There are plenty of contexts where cleverly avoiding a problem by doing 33% more work isn't viewed as desirable.

True, but I think there are more situations where minimizing the chance of programmer error, now or in the future, is more important than a micro-optimization that will never matter. All depends on context.