I agree but I think git got the distributed (ie all nodes the same) part right. I also think what you say doesn't take it far enough.

I think it should be possible to assign different instances of the repository different "roles" and have the tooling assist with that. For example. A "clean" instance that will only ever contain fully working commits and can be used in conjunction with production and debugging. And various "local" instances - per feature, per developer, or per something else - that might be duplicated across any number of devices.

You can DIY this using raw git with tags, a bit of overhead, and discipline. Or the github "pull" model facilitates it well. But either you're doing extra work or you're using an external service. It would be nice if instead it was natively supported.

This might seem silly and unnecessary but consider how you handle security sensitive branches or company internal (proprietary) versus FOSS releases. In the latter case consider the difficulty of collaborating with the community across the divide.