Git is unashamedly a power tool, for power users. Git checkout seems so natural to me in the way it functions, and I use it so often, that it would annoy the h

Git is unashamedly a power tool, for power users. Git checkout seems so natural to me in the way it functions, and I use it so often, that it would annoy the hell out of me if I had to force it or answer a y/n prompt every time I used it. What you think of as intuitive is not universal. Your reasonable defaults are unreasonable to me. This seems to be a problem of audience. Git can be challenging to learn, but it's not aimed at learners. It's aimed at power users. As others have pointed out, there are other front-ends to git. You don't have to use the default porcelain.