- debugging
- code browsing, system exploration
- customizable, modular, non-textual user interfaces*
- immediate feedback after code changes
- non-textual programming
is < what Lisp and Smalltalk environments provided more than thirty years ago.
* not necessarily visual programming. Look at the Genera Lisp OS or Plan 9 for example.
Dev envs: VSCode, Electron, more build systems than you can shake a stick at, VMs, containers, playgrounds etc
Non-textual programming. For general purpose programming, I can't think of any. There are some dead ends that will probably remain so. For niche programming, there are loads.
And to my point, Lisp, Smalltalk and Plan 9 are all good examples of failed experiments that folk took ideas from and used in subsequent projects.
Now, you may not like the investment and innovation. It may not be what you had in mind. Each to their own. But there's plenty of investment and no small amount of innovation.
More of a cul de sac than a dead end.
[1] The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal. Mitchell Waldrop.
[2] Founder School Session: The Future Doesn't Have to Be Incremental https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTAghAJcO1o