Useful tracking branches and auto merging

Hi,

For some time now I've stopped using 'git pull', and used 'git fetch', and now 'git remote update', however, this is still not ideal.

 Your branch is behind 'origin/master' by 17 commits, and can be fast-forwarded.

This message doesn't tell me _how_ I can 'fast-forward', I do 'git merge origin/master' but if git already knows 'master' is tracking 'origin/master' why should I specify that? Perhaps 'git merge --tracking'.

But, while we are on that, why not automatically merge the tracking branches? Perhaps 'git remote update --auto-merge', configurable so I can make auto-merge the default, and perhaps make it the default in 1.8. Also, maybe some people would like them to be auto merged only when they can be fast-forwarded.

I believe this would make remote tracking branches much more useful. What do you think?

Cheers