I use Emacs and Linux and programming languages. The power of those artifacts as tools is that they were created to allow for possibilities that their designers did not imagine. The price is that these tools take years to learn and probably take lifetimes to master.
Their power comes from an early architectural decision to build an extensible platform and to allow users to build their own features upon the platform. Designing something to be a tool is different than designing something to be a product. Designing a product is pleasant because it assumes the conceit that the designer is smarter than the user.
Anyway, I'm not sure that is what you were asking, but that's what I wrote.
Good luck.