Debian's which hunt

While I don't use !!, !^ and !$ are used by me all the time; and are not so easy replaced by interactive editing with cursor keys. Even !* is sometimes easier to add to a longer new command then editing the previous command. And, if we talk about readline, don't forget M-C-e to expand such edit escapes, to be able to change them afterwards.

So you have chosen exactly an ! edit escape that one needs very seldomly and ignored the ones that are still usable nowadays. Not a very fair description, IMNSHO.