I love the discoverability of /etc files, and the ability to read & edit them with whatever tools you like. If the files only included changes to default settin

I love the discoverability of /etc files, and the ability to read & edit them with whatever tools you like. If the files only included changes to default settings, and the defaults are hidden away in program binaries, how are we to discover what settings even exist in the first place? Verbose /etc config files are human-friendly and that's a good thing. Managing updates and merging config changes is still do-able. The logic to do the merges might be more complicated, but I'd rather let the complicated stuff be handled by the upgrade tools and not forced upon the user.