I never said it really was superior, just that some people (living around 1900) thought so. Also, we're talking about how "intuitive" a user interface is here, not about the safety implications. It took many decades for cars to finally get airbags, collapsible steering columns, etc. It was quite routine for people to be impaled on steering columns until the late 20th century.
I wasn't arguing about superiority. It was just a though of what things would be like if it had gone the other way.
Speaking of intuitive, a tiller on a car is only intuitive if you've used it on a boat. Pushing the lever in the opposite direction of where you want to go is counter-intuitive.
