> At least allow us to use names instead of numbers.

You can use /dev/stdin, /dev/stdout, /dev/stderr in most cases, but it's not perfect.

> You can use /dev/stdin, /dev/stdout, /dev/stderr in most cases

Never ever write code that assumes this. These dev shorthands are Linux specific, and you'll even need a certain minimum Linux version.

I cringe at the amount of shell scripts that assume bash is the system interpreter, and not sh or ksh.

Always assume sh, it's the most portable.

Linux != Unix.