Because a computer is a general-purpose tool. A computer is not a box made to be cozy and support creative, limited programming work.
If you're looking for specific use-cases, that's exactly what userland software is for. Userland software takes the general computer and converts it to something specific. If you are looking for a cozy environment that supports creative, limited programming work, you run userland software for that!
It's like software-defined networking except software-defined creative environments. Some people prefer Photoshop, and others Picotron. The computer gives you the choice, and userland software is the mechanism by which it does so.
If anything, I'd like to turn your observation around: isn't it marvellous that the same machine allows one person to run Photoshop and another Picotron, with almost no change required to switch between the two environments?
> A computer is not a box made to be cozy and support creative, limited programming work.
That's a pretty hard line you have drawn there. There is no reason why it cannot be that. There are several open source window managers which tried to have a vibe. KDE had a cozy vibe. We have a Hanna Montana Linux, which was definitely awesome as a kid. I find it obnoxious that society has decided these infinitely flexible machines will have the personality of an iron smelter.
"Cozy" and "general purpose" are not mutually exclusive. Emacs is very cozy, and it can do frickin' everything.
(Maybe Emacs is not cozy to you. But the fact that it is to a significant number of people explains why it still has fans in a world where Visual Studio Code is eating everything.)
Picotron is supposed to emulate a particular form of cozy: that of the very general-purpose computers of the 1980s and 1990s: classic Mac, Amiga, Atari ST, even Windows. What I'm lamenting is a sort of fall from grace wherein even Microsoft, of all companies, tried to shape the computing environment to bring support and comfort to the user rather than exploit them and introduce churn and friction for its own sake.
If you're looking for specific use-cases, that's exactly what userland software is for. Userland software takes the general computer and converts it to something specific. If you are looking for a cozy environment that supports creative, limited programming work, you run userland software for that!
It's like software-defined networking except software-defined creative environments. Some people prefer Photoshop, and others Picotron. The computer gives you the choice, and userland software is the mechanism by which it does so.
If anything, I'd like to turn your observation around: isn't it marvellous that the same machine allows one person to run Photoshop and another Picotron, with almost no change required to switch between the two environments?