Agree that there's plenty to dislike about Emacs' defaults, especially in terms of polish/GUI, but can you elaborate a bit on what you mean by "discoverability"? I find that the self-documenting features are really great: whenever I want to understand what something does or how it works, I can do "describe-function", "describe-key", and "describe-mode", not to mention inspect the actual source-code with just a few clicks. I miss these features whenever I use other programs. If by discoverability you mean "figuring out how to implement a specific thing I'm thinking of" then I'm curious what the ideal solution would be. For me, it's "use a search engine and, failing that, a web forum." But this isn't unique to Emacs: I and most people I know use this approach for all programs, and I don't see how a specific program could improve on it. I'd be interested in alternatives though.
> the barrier to entry is too high for people who need to focus on getting their work done today
This point is often brought up and I 100% agree with it, and think it's important that new users are aware of it. That said, I don't know if there's an easy way to get around it: you get the most out of Emacs once you're somewhat of a power user. To use a simplistic analogy: if you need to travel to the next town and you don't know how to drive, it's probably faster and definitely safer for you to walk or take the bus. Learning how to drive will take time and effort but it will pay off in the long run. My advice to new users is to start slow, use Emacs for only a few small projects, explore different functionalities but don't expect to do everything in Emacs right away, and check out some of the great tutorials out there, like the book "Mastering Emacs" or the "System Crafters" series on YouTube