If there was awk, sed, find which did the same thing but were significantly easier to use, I would complain about them. At least if I was forced to use them.
My point is that you'd be hard pressed to make awk, sed, and find simpler without removing functionality. In the same way, I think git is really compact considering its feature set. The issues like the one you point to in the article occur once in a blue moon.
If there was awk, sed, find which did the same thing but were significantly easier to use, I would complain about them. At least if I was forced to use them.