Well the point is that it's a shell component, so it's not available from anything other than a shell which is undesirable. I understand Bourne style (POSIX) s

Well the point is that it's a shell component, so it's not available from anything other than a shell which is undesirable. I understand Bourne style (POSIX) shells have the vast majority of the market, but the point is breaking other environments. "command -v" is not available everywhere so it is not a viable replacement for /usr/bin/which.