I wasn't able to use the "move" tool to move a semi-transparent layer, it kept on switching my selection to the layer below it and moving that. That violated my expectation.
The solution was to use a modifier key, but it took me a while to find it.
Not going to say your expectation is wrong, I too almost always want the tool to operate on the selected layer rather than whatever layer has the pixels. But moving the layer with the pixels is not a bad default, it makes single click quick layer alignment moves possible.
Also, salutes, sort of unrelated, but your post made me look into quick selection based editing, And there are some good operations I have never used in there including alt to move the selection and ctrl + alt to move what is in the selection.