[rntz]

Your comment is inconsistent with itself.

If LightTable's features "had been standard in IntelliJ, Visual Studio, and even Eclipse for years", how is that evidence that Granger et al were being overly ambitious? Wouldn't it suggest exactly the opposite?

Vice-versa, if LightTable was overly ambitious, wouldn't that mean it tried to do things that were (too far) beyond the scope of existing technology?