There literally is a plugin [1] containing sensible defaults that everyone in the community agrees would be good as default but “backspace” and “incsearch” are the most obvious. “Backspace” allows you to delete with the backspace key beyond the point where you pressed “insert”. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who thinks the vim default (not allowing this) is ergonomic.
Have these already been adopted in neovim by default? It seems like I already have this behavior without needing any plugins.
I wouldn't argue that the vim default (of not allowing backspace beyond where you entered insert mode) is ergonomic, but I do prefer and exclusively use the default vim behavior. It's just what I'm used to at this point (24 years using vim/nvim) and if I set it the "ergonomic" way, it's disorienting.
So, ergonomic or not, some people do prefer the default -- at least one person :).