[bachmeier]

> MS Excel and Word have all the outlining features I have ever needed, which isn't very often

This says more about you than it does about the usefulness of outliners. Not that that's bad, but it's important not to classify them as trivial just because you don't use them. Outlining software is exploding in popularity. Some examples include org-mode, Workflowy, Dynalist, Roam Research, Logseq, and Remnote. It's also fine to dislike DW, but it's not accurate to diminish his importance because you don't personally use outlining software.

[ttepasse]

For a view into 80s, 90s and early 2000s history of (mostly Mac) outliners, here is an article series:

http://www.atpm.com/Back/atpo.shtml