What's the point of the shell choice in single user mode?

[John Murphy]

I've just successfully done the world and kernel upgrade from 7 beta2
to beta3. I've always had a mergemaster phobia, but it didn't seem too
bad this time. I thought I'd broken it after choosing /bin/tcsh as my
shell in single user mode. It grumbled about termcap (I think) and
then gave me a "simple shell" with a % prompt.

fsck and mount were unknown commands and even though I could change
directory to /usr or /home they were (apparently) empty! Scary!
I now realise it was because they were not mounted of course.

I'll know to always accept the suggested /bin/sh in future, but I was
wondering if the only reason a choice of a different shell is offered
is to scare the unwary.

-- 
Thanks, John.