I find it odd that no language seems to have a syntax short-cut (like operators) for something as common as switches; the closest thing might be a shell script!

This is a very common thing to write. Why couldn’t a switch avoid all keywords and look more like a list...such as:

    ?(value):
    - 0: { doThing(); }
    - 1: { otherThing(); }
    - *: { doDefault(); }