Yeah, but they denied the problem for the longest time, so they deserve some flak for it :)
It actually makes sense if you learn the full command but makes zero sense when you google individual common operations and then they thought "this command should also have a shorthand to create branches" I suppose
I call this "hacker tunnel vision". It is a state afflicting a lot of programmers at the top of their game when it comes to writing end-user API and documentation. It can be summarized by "it is so obvious that people will think I'm mocking them for explaining this"
`git checkout` for restoring files is dumb though, but as others have mentioned the UX has been improved with `git restore`
Git checkout covering multiple usecases makes sense to me, I've never thought, hey this is used for all these different things they should be separate. I think, hey, this tool is always checking out a hash and a path.
The fact that can be a branch or a commit is entirely inconsequential. If it irks you it's because you think there is a difference between a branch and a commit then you're likely lacking some fundamental understanding about git.