I agree with you here that you have to go one extra step to open the Outline panel in the left. I would rather the Outline panel be in the right. However, I don't use symbols that often. My workflow is a bit different. So I don't particularly miss this feature. When I really need to look up by symbol, I just use Cmd + R and just fuzzy search for it.
> In the case of breadcrumbs, clicking on it with the mouse is probably faster than searching.
Again, this is personal preference. I find Command Palette faster. You find Breadcrumbs faster. But I guess since you already use Emacs, it is fastest with Outline panel on the right.
> I realize it's a unique workflow, that's why I want to know more why it's prioritized in every editor these days as I don't think this uniqueness qualifies it to ever become mainstream, much less prioritized.
Maybe Telemetry data shows that the feature is used a lot. I don't know. Even if it was by default turned off, I would turn it back on because I just feel comfortable having it on the side. I use it subconsciously so whatever I gave you were mostly from what I could remember. It is only when it is off (or when I am using another editor), that I subconsciously try to reach for the mini-map and find it jarring when it is not there. I gave you few examples. But I am sure there are few more that I am missing out on.
I mean, I can see why it got popular when Sublime introduced it. It was a time when most webdevs were editing in massive HTML templates, SASS/CSS and ES5, where the traditional outline view would return too much noise or missing important targets. But we've quickly moved past that era, it doesn't seem to make sense anymore for new players to prioritize it now.
I've been programming professionally since 2004, have tried the minimap on various editors since Sublime invented it, never found it useful.
As to tightly coupled code, well, ha, I don't know of a compiler/linter that won't spew 100s of errors because of one syntax error in a commonly used type.
I realize it's a unique workflow, that's why I want to know more why it's prioritized in every editor these days as I don't think this uniqueness qualifies it to ever become mainstream, much less prioritized.