Side note: Very likely, he's not. I think you're just being overly pedantic on verb tenses. Change "I've" to "I'd" if that makes it easier to read.

To be back on topic, I had a very similar experience after using Eclipse for several years. A co-worker introduced me to IntelliJ in 2005, and I have not regretted the decision since. IntelliJ is a fantastic IDE, particularly for Java.