As I recall, at the time, it seems that the Java ecosystem was mostly investing into writing code and declarative markup (usually XML), while Microsoft was most interested in visual designers and other ways to help devs on its platform avoid writing code. Thus, VS was far easier to get started with, but advanced coding was much better in Java IDEs.
I don't think the tooling caught up to the ease of not using the built in tooling until VS 2005 for me. Of course by VS2012, it felt like such a bloated slow mess, I don't think I've looked back much until relatively recently. Been doing a lot of Node work, which I tend to think of as very low friction.
These days, I absolutely love VS Code which tends to strike the balance of more than an editor, but not slow and bloated like a typical IDE. Integrated file tree + terminal are the best UX to me.
So when you look at VS from the perspective of someone who's used to typical Unix or JS tooling, it's comprehensive. If you look it from the perspective of an old time Java developer, it's lagging behind.