And also typing cat x to get a quick look at the file, hitting up, then piping that into another command and taking a look, hitting up, piping that result into a third command etc.
Sometimes, I'm wanting to copy text from the terminal, so "cat" is a better option if it's more than one page long or you just want to eyeball a fragment that you're going to type into a command.
`alt + .` is much more versatile. You can use it to cycle through and insert the last arguments of previous commands.