[jboles]

> Visual Studio should read in all the files, restoring to open the ones I had open last time and allow me to start editing immediately while still loading the rest in the background.

It's already done this for a few versions -- a feature named 'asynchronous solution load'. You're able to open a file and start editing while the X hundreds of projects load. However if you do a Navigate To, Find In Files, etc. among other operations, you'll get the modal progress bar because those operations require having the entire solution parsed. But editing and other simple operations are available while the projects are loading (which takes up the bulk of the time).

edit: more info about asynchronous solution load: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2013/10/14/asy...