Maybe this style of programming never takes off either because of inertia or because the programmers themselves are wired to a certain way of thinking (I am going along the lines of programmers being more "right-brained").

If you want to see visual programming pick off, try giving it to people who are somewhat analytical but more creative (don't let programmers make your product successful). For example, designers or even artists.

Another good way to evaluate it is to see what a designer can do with a tool like: www.divshot.com

I have been singing this for a long time, but I think success in visual programming (for the web) will come when you can clearly separate the frontend and backend and let the magic happen then (meaning, see the results thereafter).

Writing code itself won't go away, but why write code for mundane tasks anyway? (Why write out the entire table/list display when you can simply take a generic one and modify it with some mod tools).

The thing we all need to do though is realize that writing a lot more code doesn't actually make you more productive (even though you may feel that way).

Also, with such technologies available, are programmers themselves not being luddites?