This makes me think of an Asimov story in which people could no longer do math because they hadn't needed to for centuries, until they did and couldn't.

I can see the benefit for speed, the same way I would use a calculator to multiply 6 4 digit numbers, but not because it's "obscure."

If the command is "obscure" one probably doesn't need it often (e.g. me with any dd command) in which case asking in English might cause unforeseen problems.