According to Allan Odgaard:
I switched to US key map a few months ago, really really recommended (for coding) :)
I do more than coding and you'll pry my french AZERTY keyboard from my dead cold fingers... :-)
And if you are on a US keyboard, then Option becomes even more important because even very common diacritics need it (for French anyway).
But yes, I'll remove these option modifiers.
Thanks.