It's not that you need or don't need either. The trap is designing systems for one environment and one environment only. That's a bad assumption. That even includes smart and technically sophisticated people like us here, when we're working on something we only need to do in order to do something else. I am certain that most scientists who get involved with programming would view the tools we're discussing in exactly the same way.
Tools have to be taken in full gestalt mode.
That means clean underpinnings, clean API's, well documented interfaces, etc. I think it can be done. For at least one or two of them, it's already been done. Everyone who works on large scale projects has to keep an eye on the prize. If we don't convince the corporations that our environments are worth deploying, we'll never seriously push Microsoft out of the minds of brainwashed CTOs and corporate muckity mucks.