[youssefabdelm]

Exactly, also I typically layer a ton of different colored gradients on top of each other while clicking through each blending mode for each layer.

There's no way I'm going to compute in my head "Well this gradient with three colors is going to look like this after I mix it on top of these 3 bottom gradients each with different colors, oh and an image underneath"

Clicking a button beats computing an image in my head in terms of mental energy cost.

Speaking of energy, a physical dial, or scroll control, would be nice to cycle through quickly.

Edit: I do really admire this author's technical deep dives though, very beautifully made

[kqr]

At least in some versions of Adobe software, on some platforms (was years since I used Adobe so I can't remember if it was on Windows or OS X), once you've selected one blending mode, the drop-down control is still in focus so you can use the scrollwheel on your mouse to cycle through them.

[KineticLensman]

Mouse scrolling through the blending dropdown is still a thing in Photoshop CC. It sometimes catches me out when I want to mouse-zoom the window immediately after choosing a blending mode

[k__]

In my few journeys into image manipulation, I played around the first tries and then settled for specific blend modes for specific results.

I mean, I didn't calculate what I wanted, but I built a mental model of what each mode does and when to choose which later.