I beg to differ
1. npm install gulp
2. try to delete the node_modules folder
3. waste time fighting windows' legacy stuff (260 max path length in almost everything: explorer, cmd, git bash, etc.)
4. come across rimraf eventually
I wouldn't describe that flow as "fantastically" unless you mean "fantastically broken".
Microsoft is waking up to the fact that developers mostly aren't using microsoft dev tools anymore. Hence, docker on windows, ubuntu on windows, redesigned env vars dialog, no more path length limit, nicer command prompt, etc...
I wonder what went wrong in your case.
I do remember having trouble committing a node_modules to git because of the same MAX_PATH bullshit, but then we realized that you're not really supposed to do that anyway.
More generally, by the way, NPM 3 fixed the MAX_PATH problem for the majority of cases, when they moved away from super deeply nested file trees.