> change layout every time you start/stop the debugger
This one is a bona fide feature that I hope they do NOT remove, FWIW. It's switching to the debugger layout, which you can customize independent of the development layout. This is what lets you bring up the call stack, watch, etc. panels in the layout you prefer and it'll remember that, without having them appear during development where they are useless.
> Rewrite the whole thing from zero. Call it "Visual Studio Lite"
I dislike how in Visual Studio, hiding a sidebar or bottom panel requires closing every tab, or marking every "split" as autohide. And showing the sidebar requires reopening every tab, or marking every pane as docked. And you have to do this separately in edit and debug mode.
Jetbrains does okay, since you can use Shift+Esc to hide a panel (I prefer VSCode having separate shortcuts to hide the left sidebar and bottom panel).
Qt Creator comes pretty close to working well (having to switch between CMake/build/stdout viewers is annoying, but it's also bad in JetBrains). But I dislike how when I enter debug mode in Qt Creator, I sometimes get a debugging bottom panel over a stdout bottom panel, leaving not enough room to read my code. Then I have to mash Esc to (unfocus the Find bar, close the Find bar,) close the stdout panel, and then stop mashing (because if I press it again, I'll exit debugging mode).
This one is a bona fide feature that I hope they do NOT remove, FWIW. It's switching to the debugger layout, which you can customize independent of the development layout. This is what lets you bring up the call stack, watch, etc. panels in the layout you prefer and it'll remember that, without having them appear during development where they are useless.
> Rewrite the whole thing from zero. Call it "Visual Studio Lite"
Or, perhaps, "Visual Studio Code"? :)