[mikeash]

I don't understand this bit about having no other choice but to rebase a branch against master. When I have a long-running branch that no longer cleanly merges into master, I merge master into the branch first. I've never seen a case where rebase is required.

I find your conclusion to be most confusing. You say that programmers want other people on their team to know what they did, and then you say that they accomplish this by constructing a fake story about stuff that never happened. Sounds like you mean that programmers want other people on their team to know what they wish they had done. Which is understandable, but not at all the same.