[sazz]

In the end it is exactly the same technical complexity, it is just shifting complexity from point to another.

A proper branching strategy is not a technical solution but a social alignment of people contributing to common product. And it doesn't matter if they are contributing on different repositories or on the different branches. The technical complexity of aligning interfaces is the same in both cases.

"It's often not as easy as you make it sound."

No, it's of course not easy. But the costs in splitting teams up into different repositories and aligning their interfaces is not easy either. My point is they are both the same - just expressed differently.