Eh, "the right thing" is in large part about simplicity and uniformity of interface, not just punting on corner cases to save 100 lines of implementation. That Plan 9 managed to keep it's LoC down is credit to the Pike et al but (in part) because Plan 9 actually pushed everything is a file far enough to be useful Plan 9 is -at least compared to Unix- waywayway closer to the right thing than it is worse is better.