I (like many, I suspect) am a die-hard "natural scroll" hater. The fact that you're making physical contact with the thing you're scrolling does indeed make the "natural" direction feel natural on a touchscreen, but not on a separated scrollwheel or touchpad.
Of course you're right, it's an annoyance that's removed in a matter of seconds by clicking a checkbox, and regardless its a difference you'd quickly adjust to, assuming you kept using Macs fairly exclusively.
Still, it's not clear to me that there was any need for "unification" in this area. But then again, I don't use OS X anymore (and no, the scroll direction wasn't the reason).
Why would anyone be a "hater" toward natural scroll? The decision of which way a trackpad should scroll while swiping would otherwise be completely arbitrary. It's like being a hater of driving on the left vs. right side of the road (except in this case, I'm guessing it takes longer than five minutes to get used to).
Of course you're right, it's an annoyance that's removed in a matter of seconds by clicking a checkbox, and regardless its a difference you'd quickly adjust to, assuming you kept using Macs fairly exclusively.
Still, it's not clear to me that there was any need for "unification" in this area. But then again, I don't use OS X anymore (and no, the scroll direction wasn't the reason).