@majenko and Krupski
All the above gripes have been posted many times, some even by me. I don't understand many of the design decisions made by Arduino either but the often dubious "features" haven't stopped it becoming a success.
As someone who has never had such a runaway success despite spending a lifetime trying to produce good hardware and software design I find it quite discouraging and another case of both marketing over function and being in the right place at the right time with the right product. Also the fact that most users don't give a rodent's posterior as long as they can get a LED to blink in time with the music 
Rob