<i>how do I see two different branches' versions of files?</i><p>You could clone the branches to different paths, I guess.<p><i>But nobody else will [know that a branch is "done".]</i><p>If you've instructed the team to care about merged status, they will.  And there's nothing semantically strange about it either.<p>I get it, git isn't for you.  I concede.