I absolutely hated line numbers. In my current paid job I'm paid to develop Visual Basic applications, not a single line number in sight. Basic has certainly come a long way since the 80s.
The nice thing about line numbers is that you didn't have to learn a different code editor for different computer brands. I could walk up to any computer that had BASIC in a department store, and program up my favorite childish prank on every brand:
10 PRINT "This computer is overheated."
20 PRINT "WARNING: Computer about to EXPLODE!..."
30 GO TO 10
RUN
Newbies walking up saw the active screen, got wide-eyed and walked away quickly. One even called security, as I watched from a distance. Good times!
Yes, VMS Basic will be ported to the OpenVMS platform on amd64 fairly soon and will be available next year. I'm one of the lucky few testing OpenVMS on amd64.