[utx00]

one wonders how this works then, if Hg branches are so sub-optimal: http://hg-git.github.com/

you can re-write history in mercurial too - with the same obvious implications for both.

one thing that did go away with Hg was the need to merge unfamiliar code because someone upstream did a git-rebase.

[undees]

It maps git branches to hg bookmarks (http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/BookmarksExtension) instead of hg branches, because bookmarks turn out to be a better fit.