If you don't know the answer to the question, than the first statement isn't a fact.

I guess in the current wave of users abandoning windows, its a new feature that is unexpected, and could cause issues for them.

Maybe when I started playing in linux in the late 90s it was a wierd feature to me. Although, I'm not even sure I had a middle mouse wheel then. But it very quickly became second nature, once I discovered it and I hated when I had to use a windows machine and lost access to it.

Turning off every useful feature that linux has over windows, and making them all opt-in just to make it more windows like seems like a backwards step.