[theamk]

This means cable might start at speed which is too high and get horrible errors if the cable is bent.

And even with Ethernet, that autorating has plenty of downsides. I've had a cable which I accidentally nailed through, so sometimes it could only connect at 10Mbps. It took me a long time before I realized it needs to be replaced, precisely because it'd just downshift instead of throwing any errors.

[userbinator]

USB has had retries since the beginning, so slowing down the link to adapt to the current conditions isn't anything new.

precisely because it'd just downshift instead of throwing any errors.

That's "a feature, not a bug".