> I can relate for the most part. I can only think of one instance (in over half a decade) where I felt git's shortcomings: there is no way to get a deleted non-gc'd object from a remote to your local repository, even if you try to reference it by its sha1.

For better or worse (and I've wanted it to work too) it's an intentional security feature that you can only pull objects from a git remote that are reachable by its refs; that way deleted branches (e.g. containing data that wasn't intended for release) are instantly unavailable rather than needing to wait for GC.