Man there's a lot of really stupid shit in here.

Yes having a simple to use shape tool is nice. And it's on the roadmap so no, it doesn't go against some weird vaguely defined "core value" of gimp.

GIMP (at least in v2) does have a vector path tool and stores the paths with the image! Thing is, they kind of work like selections and you have to explicitly stroke the paths on bitmap layers. It's a bit more complicated than necessary and not easy to grasp at first.

and that is why I always keep my receipt

I think I’m just not familiar enough with image manipulation software, but GIMP feels way too complex to even get started with…

I use Paint.net usually and there are plugins people make that you can install. Does GIMP not have that?

Ooh, new gimp version.

I use GIMP only for the simple pixel stuff, and I hope they did not make basic operations even more complicated. I always struggle to get some basic things done just because there are myriads of for me useless and arcane settings.

Also, the stupid name chosen by mid-1990s edgelords trying to be funny is still stupid.

I looked up what a "shape tool" is supposed to do. How about using better tools for this, like Inkscape, export as pixel file (png or whatever), and import it into GIMP?