I agree, but I believe the fact there are no popular applications that fully embrace the Unix/Plan 9 philosophy is the point of the philosophy. Generic tools that can be composed versus end-to-end applications. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, though component-based software doesn’t preclude the development of end-to-end applications using these components. In my opinion I believe the reason end-to-end applications are dominant is because it’s easier for companies to sell and market products over tools. Part of the reason OpenDoc failed was because companies that made a living selling end-to-end applications (like Adobe) didn’t want to adopt component-based software where the product (application) isn’t the main focus. Imagine if users could construct their own Photoshop out of discrete elements.
There were plenty of ActiveX lego components to build Photoshop like applications on Windows during the 1990's, back when buying libraries was a thing professionals would care about.
