No, you're now pushing up a history that is a lie. Those commits represent states that never existed, and which you never tested. They certainly don't represent

No, you're now pushing up a history that is a lie. Those commits represent states that never existed, and which you never tested. They certainly don't represent your headspace at the time. Those merge commits are the truth. The histories diverged, and had to be reconciled at some point. If I'm trying to understand the history then I want to see that, not your idealized version where you try to pretend that the divergence never happened. It can be hard to accept sometimes, but you're putting in a lot of effort for an end result that just makes life worse for everyone involved.