Agreed. I've often made a point among colleagues that source control, because it's built by programmers for use nearly exclusively by programmers, has enjoyed very little user interface attention through its lifespan. Unlike other applications that have experimented and evolved their user interface relatively rapidly, source control like build tools, is an area where there is little demand for UI improvement (and hence, little value in doing so). Putting aside proprietary and very expensive source control systems, the open source options seem to align to the way we used computers generally in the following decades.

1970s: CVS

1980s: Subversion

1990s: Git (shifting Git to the 1990s even aligns it with the batch of distributed OS research from that era).

This is especially reductive and somewhat mean-spirited, but my point is that using Git gives me the feeling of using other types of applications from the 1990s. Source control remains stuck in an era where computer programs appeared to be designed in part to appeal to the curiosity of developers who take pride in mastering complex systems, not for being eminently usable.

When I say Git "feels 1990s" a retort is that I am a Git hater and should just use Perforce or some other crummy commercial product. That misses the point. It just feels like a tool from the 1990s, which to be clear, feels a heck of a lot better than a tool from the 1980s. But I live in the 2010s. I want a source control system that does its job and gets out of my way. Again, to be reductive and mean, just like build tools, source control systems are a time-sink that captivate the attention of people who enjoy fussing with tools. It's not that I don't like Git versus its real-world contemporaries, but I want Git + 20 years.