Over time, many of the features in a personal airplane cockpit have become more or less standardized. Power controls are color- and shape-coded, flight instruments consistently work the same way and when we push on the pitch control, houses get bigger. Not so much for many other controls, especially those for important systems. The Cessna 172 you learned to fly in probably had electric flaps and a fuel selector with a BOTH position. It was about as simple as simple got; the only time one needed to select an individual time was when we were going for maximum range and wanted to run a tank dry.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/flight-safety/accident-probe-fuelish-behavior