I really appreciate the distinction you're making here. That is, rebase itself is not necessarily either the hero or bane of the process. There are several ways

I really appreciate the distinction you're making here. That is, rebase itself is not necessarily either the hero or bane of the process. There are several ways to the "squash my disordered commits" problem, which you've described nicely. I personally use rebase similar to the author, to squash all my noise down to my final intention. But this could be achieved in other ways, just the same.