Yeah, I don't take exception with most of their choices, and to be perfectly honest PHP has historically made a number of really bad choices and refused to fix horrible bugs.

I just feel that providing the handful of tools that have been available since C and keeping them with the same name and the same argument position only makes sense.

If people aren't cloning Python commands for their design sensibilities. When they ask for a creature comfort that doesn't affect performance, It should be more strongly considered.