> Also, instead of passing any arguments to "git-log", I usually just use "tig", an ncurses display of the commits: https://blogs.atlassian.com/2013/05/git-tig/

Agree, tig is awesome and in my opinion the best git GUI (or at least representation). Use the normal commandline tools for commiting/cutting/rebasing/... and tig to see where everything is at!