I often wish more software would make the same UX trade-offs.

I suspect this is why a lot of advanced users stick with the command line - a better "pro" UX is surely possible (REPLs / notebook style interfaces are a limited example) but outside of programming tools there doesn't seem to be much serious effort in this space.

It's worth noting that this is the antithesis of mainstream designer thinking right now. Designers i've worked with want to minimise the amount of information on screen to maximise its impact and clarity; lots of blank space, lots of elegance. Perhaps this works for general consumer apps, but it's not what heavy professional users want, are accustomed to, or can make the best use of.

But one thing I constantly iterated was getting that blend. I also found though, some users didn't use some of the features like keyboard shortcuts. Also the way iterative web design works, is it kind of runs counter to developing keyboard shortcuts. You want to develop quickly, but at the same time keyboard shortcuts need to stay the same alongside a fast UX. If you constantly change things when people prioritize predictability and speed, you run into what Excel did in 2007 when everything changed.

It's a tradeoff and I think there has to be some semblance of stability before you can optimize the UX. I think I'm now at that stage but the current paradigms of iterative development make this difficult to pull off in the short-term.