would you expand on this? i'm curious what i've been missing, and what possibilities there are!

for me, a TS using node nerd, vs code does these things well:

  1. ts language server
  2. decent plugins (that i can commit to scm)
  3. yarn 2 support 
  4. nice debugger interaction

is there more for me to have? is the core difference i use so much m$ stuff?

There are too many to list. I'd recommend using a JetBrains IDE to see what it has.

Off the top of my head, VSCode lacks a decent code formatter and a "search everywhere"-type command palette. And the Git and database support is not good either, but that's kind of a given.

I love the gitlens extension personally - I find it to be a big productivity boost when navigating a complex/legacy codebase.