I don't think you were unclear in your original comments, Steve. You brought up some shortcomings in the tools that, if addressed, would just make life a bit easier for everyone. Yes, you can make the tools "too" helpful, but I don't think we're in any danger of that anytime soon. I also remember those days using v4.21 and keeping track of growth scripts (and converting pages to MB and back). MS upgraded the toolset and server to keep track of that information so it wasn't needed and that was a welcome change. Of course, they also decided that basing the SQL shell on VS IDE was a good idea when most DBA's don't tend to do much in Visual Studio and would prefer better keyboard-based management instead of the constant move mouse, click, move mouse, click in the modern UI.

I think there's a balance. My DBA co-worker developed these scripts over time to ease his job. There are probably some MS changes that could help him, though not many. There are definitely 3rd party alternatives, but no real reason for our company to pay for them at the moment. These sorts of areas are the ones that MS could address by bringing in the day-to-day users of SQL Server and listening to them. Even the MVPs may not think of some of these areas because they just work around them with their arsenal of scripts from past experience. I'd suggest opening a Connect ticket for an enhancement request, but experience tends to show that without a lot of publicity about the Connect tickets they tend to be "Closed, will not fix" more often than not. In the case of enhancements, it seems that they're "Closed. Working as designed." MS tends to ignore the fact that the very design is what's being brought up in the ticket.