They were based on inference, yes. I didn't quote them, as they
weren't relevant to what I was replying to. I can't go edit the post I
made, nor would I, anyone is free to look at the threads history to
see them if they'd like.

Yes, this is very common, especially in non-rigorous discussions like
the one they're having.
I don't feel that it's an improbable discussion, and I would hope that
if it was blatantly incorrect that there would be a slew of people
saying that that's not what they intended. Humans can be bad at
expressing all the necessary assumptive building blocks to a
conclusion, but hopefully do care about clarity.

I am in fact assuming people have additional reasons, although
unstated. I do this for a few reasons:

  1. It's very common.
  2. As you pointed out, making changes *just* to be like other
software is a bit silly.
  3. People often notice when many things do things similarly and feel
like there may be some merit to their methods.

I do not, and I agree that it doesn't apply when you start to use
*entirely new* software. I should clarify here -- if you're using your
first image editor, you should expect to have to learn many new
things. If you're using your tenth image editor, you will probably
have quite a bit of transferable knowledge from the first through
ninth that you learned. You should, of course, be fine with learning
new things, but it's not a one-sided argument. Software writers should
also be willing to make changes that are in line with behavior from
other software *in their category*, if there is merit to the behavior.

Could we be though? I think we'd make a great couple!