This seems weird to me. While it's true that I don't want dependencies to mess up my git diff, I can't say that a dependency change has "nothing to do with the project". A change in dependencies almost always means a change in the behavior of my project.

I guess what you're saying is that submodules means that the diffs are better somehow, but I can't remember ever enjoying using submodules. This whole thing seems more like a git problem than anything else.