I think you might be confused... (and if not then I certainly am). The -d flag means 'download', and the argument isn't a branch name, it's the review number fr

I think you might be confused... (and if not then I certainly am). The -d flag means 'download', and the argument isn't a branch name, it's the review number from the Gerrit URL. You don't use it for reviewing code (that generally happens in the Gerrit web interface, or in gertty), you use it when you want to modify a patch submitted by somebody else. I'm not sure what a UX that lets you check out somebody else's patch without specifying which patch would look like. FWIW I use Gerrit every day, and I don't recall ever once using the -d flag.