Yeah it's not just you - Arduino's IDE is astonishingly awful. But ESP32 isn't really anything to do with Arduino, other than the fact that Arduino supports some boards that use it. You can program the ESP32 in whatever IDE you like.
By the way if you are looking for something like Arduino but less awful, Mbed is the most promising option. Their boards and API have been far superior for years, but unfortunately they relied on a mediocre online IDE. However they have finally seen the error of their ways and have a proper offline IDE, based on Theia, which is based on VSCode.
By the way if you are looking for something like Arduino but less awful, Mbed is the most promising option. Their boards and API have been far superior for years, but unfortunately they relied on a mediocre online IDE. However they have finally seen the error of their ways and have a proper offline IDE, based on Theia, which is based on VSCode.
https://os.mbed.com/studio/