Agreed; this is a really interesting perspective. It points to how different applications yield different optimizations. Base 60 is fucking cool. I really like musing on how we arrived at the duration of a second.
It really is! The number of digits might be a bit much for normal use, so perhaps base-12 is more realistic. If we're going to upend tradition, might as well do it for good, well-founded reasons …
Of course, that would have been equally a problem had one team been using kilogramme-metre-seconds and the other gramme-metre-seconds, and could have been avoided by standardising on customary or on French Revolutionary units!
I stand by the assertion that being one of 7 countries that only sometimes uses SI has very real costs. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/mars-climate-orbiter/