Yes, but if I :q and it complains that the file was modified, and I decide that the change is worthwhile, :wq and :x are equivalent, since :x is only different

Yes, but if I :q and it complains that the file was modified, and I decide that the change is worthwhile, :wq and :x are equivalent, since :x is only different when the file isn’t modified. You may argue that :x is shorter, but one thing is character count and another is muscle memory distance because of mnemonic similarity between :q and :wq.