Yes indeed, its sad they abandoned them!

Pie menus worked really well in HyperTIES, a hypermedia browser we developed in 1988 at HCIL, as well as Emacs, and I miss them, especially when my MacBook Pro overheats and gets really really really slow, as bad as a Sun 3/50 running NeWS!

And there are some big gaps between implementing one particular menu, to enabling programmers to implement any menu, to enabling designers to implement any menu, to enabling users to implement any menu, to motivating and educating users how to design great menus for themselves.

Bridging the last gap requires providing good defaults and examples, intelligent automatic layout and constraints, and somehow teaching users to intuitively understand Fitts's Law and other important principles of user interface design.

That's what I was getting at with the "Crazy Example: PieCraft".

With games, it's possible to put pressure on users to figure it out for themselves, to award points for good performance, to punish them when they don't perform well (by death, if necessary), and to organically reward them when they do it right (with virtual fame and fortune, not just as a prize, but as the natural result of having well designed menus, and being able to fight and defend themselves better).

But that's not so user friendly for a text editor to challenge, punish and reward the user like that. But the lessons they learn playing a game can still transfer over to their text editor.

>One idea I’ve had is to develop a game called “PieCraft”, that has user-editable pie menus that are first-order in-game player craftable artifacts. [..]

>You could find empty or pre-populated pie menus in the world, pick them up and make them your own, and edit them by moving items around, putting them inside of other menus, and modifying them as you leveled up and earned more powerful menu editing skills and resources.

>The capacity and layout and allowed contents of some menus could be restricted, to constrain the ways you used them, forcing you to figure out which were your most important items, and giving them front row seats so they were easiest to select.

>To put further pressure on players to design efficient menus, your menus could be vulnerable to attack from warriors or theft from pickpockets while they were popped up, and only be able to take a limited amount of damage (depending on if they were crafted from wood or diamond).

>When hit hard enough, items could break loose and fall on the ground, or a whole slice or menu could break open like a piñata and spill all its items into the world. Then you (and your enemies) would have to scramble to pick up all the pieces!

>The sense of urgency and vulnerability while the menu was popped up would compel you to “mouse ahead” to get through the menus quickly, and arrange your most important items so you could find and select them as quickly as possible.

>It would reward you for successfully “mousing ahead” swiftly during combat, by avoiding damage from attack and loss from thieves, and awarding power-up points and experience.

The "Awesome Example: Monster Hunter: World — Radial Menu Guide" shows the benefits of user created radial menus, and what a profound effect good menu design can have on gameplay.

>Monster Hunter: World is a wonderful example of a game that enables and motivates players to create their own pie menus, that shows how important customizable user defined pie menus are in games and tools.

>Want access to all your items, ammo and gestures at your fingertips? Here’s a quick guide on the Radial Menu.
>With a multitude of items available, it can be challenging to find the exact one you need in the heat of the battle. Thankfully, we’ve got you covered.
>Here’s a guide on radial menus, and how to use them:
>The radial menu allows you to use items at a flick of the right stick.
>There are four menus offering access to eight items each, and you can fully customize them, all to your heart’s content.
>Radial menus are not just limited to item use, however.
>You can use them to craft items, shoot SOS flares, and even use communication features such as stickers and gestures.

But it doesn't go quite as far as to elevate player crafted menus into first class customizable parameterized in-game artifact that players can craft, discover in the world, destroy in combat, and buy high quality designer menus from other players at the auction house, empty or pre-populated with all kinds of other sub-menus and other items, like gift baskets of food, magic spells or flower arrangements.