alt Hacker NewsSome people complain about "visual clutter". Too many stimuli in the field of view assault their attention, and ruin their concentration. Such people want everything that's not in the focus of attention be gone, or at least be inconspicuous.
Some people are like airliner pilots. They enjoy every indicator to be readily visible, and every control to be easily within reach. They can effortlessly switch their focus.
Of course, there is a full range between these extremes.
The default IDE configuration has to do a balancing act, trying to appeal to very different tastes. It's inevitably a compromise.
Some tools have explicit switches: "no distractions mode", "expert mode", etc, which offer pre-configured levels of detail.
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This is a good idea. In basic/beginner mode, every control should be readily visible and discoverable.
This is why we used to have customizable toolbars, and relevant actions still accessible via context menu and/or main menu, where the respective keyboard shortcuts were also listed. No need to compromise. Just make it customizable using a consistent framework.