You point is what, that these are needlessly asymmetric? It's true. But they're in my head because I do them every day, and it's not like I'm suffering under the burden of remembering a handful of flags. That's a pretty far cry from "not actually usable", so maybe your hyperbole is a little misplaced?
Anyone with half a brain can understand that if they can't keep something as simple as printing a list consistent you better believe nothing else will be straightforward. Which is my point. NOTHING is straightforward and I haven't met a single person who likes the CLI if they do anything more complex than a commit, push and pull. I know people who still refuse to use rebase and don't understand bisect or blame. They use a GUI to restore files