It just isn't the foundation you'd build on if you valued these things, they only added non-destructive recently it's not like it was core from the start, there's many other projects you could build upon that have this at their core.

Krita or honestly even Blenders shader graph would be a better and more modern starting point if that's what you wanted and you'd have a more active base where you're going to get value downstream in optimizations and more filters on a timeline that isn't multiple decades.