For an example of closer vintage to USB-A, FireWire 400 had a great connector shape. You could tell what side you were looking at from any angle.

Svideo wasn't bad, better than HDMI for me. Though I wouldn't have believed that myself if it weren't for all the nightmare situations I've had with HDMI. At least it have given me some use for the selfie camera on my phone...

HDMI and Displayport are just hard to come in from an angle. DVI and VGA are much simpler in that regard.

Svideo was often quite simple, just find the whole and you are halfway done. Then carefully twist it and you can feel when it is correct. Even when you have no idea where the slot even is to start.

With HDMI and DP being so similar it is easy to mix them up.

The problem is the seeing part. If you have to see in order to plug in a cable then it is inherently harder to work with.

You don't, for example, hear the same complaints about DVI, VGA, Serial, or Parallel ports. Why? Because you can feel the right orientation when you plug things in.

If you can't feel the right orientation, then the next best thing is to make the orientation not matter.

This is why S-Video sucks. Because you MUST see to work with it.

Of course, the main reason people have a problem with USB is because they are constantly interacting with it, plugging and unplugging things.

Not all vga connectors are made equal, I had some that would quite easily plug in the wrong way, luckily no damage was caused by that and it was back in the day.