I'm only arguing that what you see as clutter, I see as potentially interesting history, and a mess of merges and reverts are more interesting than people give them credit. It can tell you quite a lot about a project. (Did you learn from reverting 'Merged: Did This' anything about why it shouldn't have been merged? Did you miss something in 'Merged: Did that' that didn't quite merge easily? That's easier to find/diagnose with smaller more often merges than big evil merges...)

Anyway, to each their own, and I appreciate your preferences differ from mine.