Just give me a null already

In C#, the Dictionary is quite a staple. I use it quite a bit. However I've always been bothered by the fact that the indexer throws a KeyNotFoundException exception rather than returning null:

Dictionary<int, string> MyValues = GetDictionary();
string aValue = MyValues[1];   // THROWS ERROR IF 1 DOESN'T EXIST

This required a lot of code that looks like:

Dictionary<int, string> MyValues = GetDictionary();
string aValue = null;
if (MyValues.ContainsKey(1))
{
  aValue = MyValues[1];   
}

Or perhaps the tertiary approach:

Dictionary<int, string> MyValues = GetDictionary();
string aValue = MyValues.ContainsKey(1) ? MyValues[1] : null;

To me this is code-bloat for the many cases when a null string is perfectly acceptable.

Introducing GetValueOrDefault

Finally, as of C# 7.1, a better solution is here. One I only recently discovered. It's very similar to the ever useful .FirstOrDefault() call. It's GetValueOrDefault. It even allows you to specify a default other than null. Here's it's use:

Dictionary<int, string> MyValues = GetDictionary();
// This returns null if not found
string aValue = MyValues.GetValueOrDefault(1);  
// This returns "" if not found.  A helpful alternative
string bValue = MyValues.GetValueOrDefault(1, String.Empty);  

Much nicer!
I just need to decide if it's worth replacing ALL my old ContainsKey's...