Thank you for this elaborate explanation and very valid use-case. I did find out that octopus merges have been used quite extensively in e.g. the Linux history

Thank you for this elaborate explanation and very valid use-case. I did find out that octopus merges have been used quite extensively in e.g. the Linux history as I was trawling the archives for one of the anecdotal remarks I made. I eventually found them both, by the way (post updated): * https://lore.kernel.org/all/Pine.LNX.4.58.0506221433540.2353@ppc970.osdl.org/T/ https://lore.kernel.org/all/Pine.LNX.4.58.0506221433540.2353... * https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/blog/2017/the-biggest-and-weirdest-commits-in-linux-kernel-git-history https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/blog/2017/the-biggest-and... I suppose whenever you've got scenarios where integrating a significant volume of unrelated work (with low probabilities of conflicts) it starts to make a lot more sense. I guess it's not really been that relevant to me personally.