It's not just their roots that are different. Blender also once had some weird deficiencies in its UI/UX. As I recall, the developers swallowed their pride and

It's not just their roots that are different. Blender also once had some weird deficiencies in its UI/UX. As I recall, the developers swallowed their pride and started working alongside with designers and HCI experts. Blender matured from being a cool kid's programming club, into a professional OSS organization. Whereas GIMP seems to shun designers and HCI experts, losing out on the valuable insights that those folks could share.