I think the fact that Blender has had same person steering its development since the days when it was an in-house tool for a small animation studio makes a trem

I think the fact that Blender has had same person steering its development since the days when it was an in-house tool for a small animation studio makes a tremendous difference. The other factor is that Blender was always a tool by and for actual companies doing real commercial work and understands those needs. GIMP on the other started as a university project that got picked up the GNU project, and has always been more of a 'research' project.