Richard,
as a comment on VA Smalltalk: you are referring to the Linux version, which is also your Screenshot. I agree that Linux version of VA Smalltalk is far from what I'd call enjoyable or beautiful. If you take a look at the Windows version of VAST, you'll immediately realize that Linux users miss a lot of nice stuff that has been added to VA Smalltalk over the last few releases.
The reason here is most likely that commercial Smalltalk projects mainly target Windows. This has changed for headless servers and I think it is slowly starting to happen for GUI clients, but it will take some time. We developers like Linux, but most of our end users still live and breathe on Windows. Not that I like it, but it's a fact, at least in the commercial field.
Joachim
