[SkyMarshal]

>So not to sound like a complete ass, here's what I would've used instead - a gear for preferences, a "power off/on" symbol for logout, a simple blank page with a plus sign for "new", some sort of inbox or even an envelope for "notifications". Just keep it simple and don't overthink

Great point, especially about using + for new. They don't need to abstract the concept of a repository, they just need to abstract the concept of the Create/New action.

Their users will of course know it means to create a new repository, rather than a MS Word Document, email, sandwich, or whatever, simply based on context.

They've gotten into their heads that they need to create a new design language for version control concepts. And perhaps that's true for the Fork and Merge buttons, which are actions unique to version control, but not for everything. Create, Logoff, Notifications, etc. are not unique to version control at all. Just reuse what everyone is familiar with for those.