You are arguing that "copy and paste" and "cut and paste" in the context of a file manager actually behave as "mark, then copy" and "mark, then move" operations

You are arguing that "copy and paste" and "cut and paste" in the context of a file manager actually behave as "mark, then copy" and "mark, then move" operations. Well, that's exactly how Finder works, isn't it? Cmd+C marks files, Cmd+V copies them, Cmd+Opt+V moves them.