So, after spending two days typing out cordova-cli command lines by hand (nice long ones like "cordova plugin rm org.apache.cordova.core.file-transfer", mostly), I finally broke down and added proper completion for my shell.
I've created a JIRA issue to hold the code, as a "New Feature" ticket. I'm not planning on committing anything like this until it's had a bit wider exposure, if people find it useful. I've been using it daily since writing it, and a few others here have tried it, and their feedback has made it more useful and stable. It's CB-4200, if anybody wants to try it. Source it in your .bashrc file on OS X, or add it to /etc/bash_completion.d on debian-based systems. Ian