So back when I was learning git, I was very shy about using any GUI because I was afraid that it would make learning how git works that much harder. I think that I somehow felt that the CLI was more fundamental, in some way. But I think you are right, and I was wrong. A better interface that puts the graph front and center would have led me to learn it so much faster, especially when it also exposes the command line equivalents, as magit does (or so I've heard).