Funny you say that about the visual noise because as someone who’s dyslexic, I find line numbers actually help with readability since it is easier for me to remember a number than it is text.

I also find it especially useful in vi when working with config files. I’m sure you are aware of this feature but in case others aren’t, in vi if you type numbers before a command, it runs that commend n times. So you can quickly copy or delete multiple lines.

It just goes to show how deeply personal a preference a persons code editor is.