I do not know if Boston is unique in this regard, but there was a lot of company housing in the region.
Where I worked in Longwood (Boston), the offices surrounding me were massive, historic buildings with plaques commemorating their origin. They were originally built for housing nurses and doctors who worked in the area's hospitals (there is a concentration of hospitals in Longwood).
So in this case, these were built and used as housing before a later conversion to office space.
These are currently utilized hospital buildings. IMO, they are unlikely to be converted back to residential at this time.
I have followed this approach as well. I use a larger display from further away. I did get a deeper desk to enable this in my current setup. Previously, I mounted my monitor on the wall and moved the desk out ~10" (~25cm).
Either way gives me a greater range of suitable monitors, and they are all cheaper than going for unicorn displays.
Nowadays, I think it is doable with modern displays.
My 165Hz 1440p 32" (31.5") LG with 8 bit color and two external speakers consumes ~20W, measured at the wall.
My 14" laptop screen is about 19.8% of the area of that display. I have loosely measured it from ranges of ~<1W at min brightness to ~8W at max brightness. It is 1440p, 60Hz, 14", HDR (DV). I usually run it at ~20% brightness, which seems to be around 3W.
My office has the usual LED lighting at night or a large window + sliding glass door during the day. Not a dark cave by any means!
IMO (i.e, not an expert, only fiddled around with IC design at .18 micron in undergrad), no fast/cheap try-observe cycle.
Software for web? I (often) can see the finished product as I'm typing the characters in my IDE. Even for PCB design? The output can be acquired and tested under a week with low cost.
IC fab? Not cheap and not fast. All built on machines and processes that discourage experimentation on running lines, since even the slightest mistake can scrap weeks or months of work. Work that involves high pressure, high energy toxic gasses, and lots of them. Also some non-toxic elements/chemicals. Capital costs are extremely high (IMO, this is also part of why working with HW doesn't pay as much - capital costs are high, allowing employers to have serious leverage).
IMO, that is similar to: why the James Webb space telescope cost so much, and why many Mars rovers cost so much. They have to get it right, at almost any cost, because it costs so much to deploy them. Unless a fundamental change in costs (w.r.t. Earth --> Deep Space) occurs, the cost of failure will remain high and so will the costs of development.
For me it's probably Ghidra or Jetbrains IDEA in 2023. Both are desktop, thought I could see the debate on whether or not developers are considered mainstream consumers. I use them on Linux and Windows, so I definitely get value out of their cross platform capabilities.
I use Eclipse-based tools at work (again, I can see the debate). It seems like Samsung's Smarthings (IoT platform) used to use Groovy, but has recently migrated away.
I also know you said desktop, but a weak argument could be made in favor of the (also weak) JVM connections of Android. I'd put forth that some Android usecases are basically former desktop usecases.
For the ones that used later gen Nanos (same form factor as early Shuffles) as music devices during running/jogging, the Watch supplanted that role with the added benefit of combining the Nano and fitness bands (GPS, heart rate).
I agree, a full phone was annoying large and hard to carry (tried forearm straps at one point) and often ran without one. Though I know people who still ran with a phone anyways.
MediaTek is pretty decent in terms of open source support for their WiFi chips and SoCs, to the point of continuously supporting a long time OpenWRT developer (Felix Fietkau) to work on their OpenWRT device drivers. This is an effort that is independent of their closed source drivers for the same devices.
Doesn't mean everything MTK does shines under the sun, but in Linux WiFi, they are probably the most open and well supported in the modern age.
Where I worked in Longwood (Boston), the offices surrounding me were massive, historic buildings with plaques commemorating their origin. They were originally built for housing nurses and doctors who worked in the area's hospitals (there is a concentration of hospitals in Longwood).
So in this case, these were built and used as housing before a later conversion to office space.
These are currently utilized hospital buildings. IMO, they are unlikely to be converted back to residential at this time.