I agree, but Meteor is still young and it actually has a reason for doing it that way. Meteor doesn't have a built-in module system right now, so when you add something like underscore.js to your Meteor project, you don't need to require("underscore"), it's simply available on both the client and server globally.

I feel like they chose to go for convenience rather than consistency with existing practices.

But like I said, Meteor is still in its infancy. It's entirely possible this will all change down the line.