Yeah, sorry, but those are not particularly reasonable arguments. A code cleanup is by definition different from regular commits that concern functionality. It is very simple to distinguish between the two and it is particularly simple to distinguish this in a git-blame (*cough* git-blame -w *cough*). And the answer to the question "why is it like this" in case of code style commits is rather simple. Again - We are programmers, we know how to filter. Don't pretend you cannot filter, it's simply not a useful argument.
I think that the only real concern here is that history bloat is cosmetically unappealing and as I've said - I'm willing to get that down to a handful of commits per PR going forward (save, obviously, for commits related to comments by you guys, but we could find a way to combine those into one). I'm really more than happy to make this work, but I'm asking you to pay a small price for this in respecting my own commit and work history the way it actually went.
Throwing up technical side-issues as arguments is, I suppose, the way we developers usually try to handle everything, but let's be clear about this: I'm telling you that it is my own, personal, requirement to do it in this way. I have already put in a lot of work in this and I'm offering you to do a tremendous amount more work. I hope you aren't so foolish as to throw that opportunity away. My work would be, in time, only a blip on the commit history. Bikeshedding about whether it would be a blip of one or two microseconds seems almost comical.
Anyways, let me know if that is a final decision. The only thing I can do
here is appeal to reason and ask to respect my one requirement. If that
doesn't work for you, I'd be happy to pull my PRs and safe myself further work and you guys further trouble of dealing with this.