The whole purpose of using 'GetComponent' in code is to get the component reference at runtime. Saying it's a problem that it doesn't statically verify it exists, doesn't make any sense
I understand that GetComponent is a runtime lookup, and what I'm arguing is that Unity made the wrong choice. Runtime lookups lead to more bugs. They lead to slower code.
The best practices that have sprouted up around GetComponent say "Use GetComponent<> only in Awake(), and don't use AddComponent or RemoveComponent at all." But once you start following all these best practices, you've lost all the benefits of having GetComponent be dynamic in the first place. So just enforce it at a code level, and give me the benefits of static typechecking and compile time errors when I screw things up.
