> VSC != VS

Yes, but VSCode offers a lot of the functionality for a lot of the programming languages/frameworks OP mentioned he uses IntelliJ for. HTML, JS, CSS, Vue, Node, Python are all perfectly useable in VSCode. For stuff like Java and maybe SQL the full version of Visual Studio would be a fair comparison since VSCode's options for that aren't that amazing (imho).

I think it depends on the environment as to usablity: eg. on my home laptop, VSC is great; but on my locked-down corporate laptop everything is a slog library and extension-wise - Pycharm just works.

That's obviously a process issue to an extent, but there is only so much time I want to spend messing about with this stuff, and if an IDE doesn't have me fighting admin rights every minute, I'll go with that one.

I used Visual Studio extensively for Python development and occasional debugging of C#, it never once asked for admin privileges.

Wouldn't be surprised if there are issues with older versions though like VS2010 or before.

VSCode, not VS - I used the user version, which didn't require admin privileges but as soon as I started trying to install libraries (e.g. Pandas etc), no dice. Some environments may vary - but like I said, time is limited, no issues with Pycharm.

that was the primary driver to me moving full time into a linux VM for work. The corporate crap and antivirus made my overpowered laptop really slow.

I then moved to booting with an external Samsung T5 SSD drive straight into Linux and running Windows in VMs.

I still need the primary Windows for when I need to join the domain.