I'm biased to appreciate that F-Droid even exists but providing a default list is not cognitive dissonance, and what you've said suggests that you may have missed the author's point.
You can connect whatever "collection of apps" source you desire but you're correct that you do get the "F-Droid List" out of the box.
It may feel odd to show no apps when initially using F-Droid but, in theory, one improvement may be to have the user explicitly choose a source list and maybe the "F-Droid List" is first in the list among others.
Going in that direction would also help expose that particular feature as I wasn't even aware that you could add / change sources for F-Droid, which sounds like if easy enough to add may be an easier avenue to self publish apps than the major app stores.
You can connect whatever "collection of apps" source you desire but you're correct that you do get the "F-Droid List" out of the box.
It may feel odd to show no apps when initially using F-Droid but, in theory, one improvement may be to have the user explicitly choose a source list and maybe the "F-Droid List" is first in the list among others.
Going in that direction would also help expose that particular feature as I wasn't even aware that you could add / change sources for F-Droid, which sounds like if easy enough to add may be an easier avenue to self publish apps than the major app stores.