I might not [EDIT: in fact, was not: see reply below] be appreciating the way that the staging area convolutes the UI for you, but you can pretend it doesn't exist by always just doing commit -a. And, if you want to "cherry-pick what you want to commit at commit time", well, that's what the staging area is for, isn't it?
Pretending it doesn't exist won't unconvolute the UI. I'm talking about things like "git checkout -- <file>", and "Git reset" which could just be one command if they didn't have to manage getting things in and out of the staging area.
I much prefer bzr's porcelain, it's much better designed and more sane.