I agree. While there are many things to admire about Smalltalk (e.g. clean syntax, real Object Orientation, feeling of a high-level language), the image idea is certainly the least favorite of mine.

The idea of a bundled IDE is also something I am not completely convinced that it is the best solution. On the one hand, it allows powerful operations, but on the other hand, every feature has to be developed explicitly for that language.

Instead, I prefer the modularity of Unix tools which can be used to develop tools by combining multiple technologies.