> I am saying checkout was not a bad choice at the time.
What you actually said is that you don't get why people complain about it.
> even they did not invent this interface
It doesn't matter who invented it. Bad is bad. That's my point.
> most people seem to [...] ignore historical context and complain why something wasn't done ~20 years ago
Historical context isn't completely irrelevant—if the question is how something came to be. People complaining aren't complaining about that, though. They're complaining that it's bad, no matter how it came to be. It's not wrong to do so, and it's weird to say you don't get why they would. "Because it's bad" is why. That's sufficient enough to have a complaint, and anything else is irrelevant.
We may have experienced different complaints. What I hear is complaints like "Why on earth would you ever make switching to a branch be `git checkout`, that makes no sense?".
Queue historical context: Well very easy. In historical context, that would have been intuitive for people that would be using a version control system like git, because they were used to using tools that did the exact same thing.
Same way as a 20 something that has never used anything but git would not "get" why I say: "What's wrong with just using checkout? I've used that for years and years and it's second nature, why would you make me memorize a different way now? Also tell me, why can't I switch other things than branches with git switch, like a tag?"
It's like ChatGPT hype. I totally don't "get" it. If you believe the hype, we're all out of work yesterday. But it's actual capabilities seem to be far more limited and while useful for certain things and able to speed up development time if used right, it does not live up to the hype. Now of course you will correctly point out that not everyone is saying that and you are right. Just like not everyone complains about git checkout like I mentioned. But they exist and if not the majority they're the loudest.
What you actually said is that you don't get why people complain about it.
> even they did not invent this interface
It doesn't matter who invented it. Bad is bad. That's my point.
> most people seem to [...] ignore historical context and complain why something wasn't done ~20 years ago
Historical context isn't completely irrelevant—if the question is how something came to be. People complaining aren't complaining about that, though. They're complaining that it's bad, no matter how it came to be. It's not wrong to do so, and it's weird to say you don't get why they would. "Because it's bad" is why. That's sufficient enough to have a complaint, and anything else is irrelevant.