Inconsistent behavior between Visual-D and Mono-D

[beannaich via Digitalmars-d-ide]

tldr; the fragmentation in the D community is shocking at times, 
and the IDEs should at least inter-operate elegantly.

While trying different IDE packages on Windows, I've slowly 
figured out that Mono-D is a better editing experience, and 
Visual-D is a better debugging experience.

It would seem logical that Visual-D and Mono-D would both be able 
to open the same .dproj files, but they can't. After inspecting 
the .dproj files generated by both, it becomes very obvious why 
they can't.

Mono-D generates some fairly standard looking project files, 
while Visual-D generates a completely custom project file.. Why? 
Why can't the two Windows IDE use the same, mostly standard 
looking project files?

If I want to use Mono-D to edit, and Visual-D to debug (which, by 
the way, is a pain in the ass in itself) then I have to make /2/ 
project files, and rename one of them (they both use the .dproj 
extension).

I realize at this point, that changing the format of the Visual-D 
project files will cause a lot of project files to simply break, 
which might cause a lot of backlash. But in my opinion, this 
needs to be done sooner than later.

Side note: The syntax highlighting options in Visual-D are almost 
comical. Why should I have to tell it which types to highlight? 
Shouldn't this be automatically deduced by a semantic parser?

Side note 2: Why does the "add folder" menu in Visual-D add a 
filter? As near as I can tell, filters do absolutely nothing, 
aside from confusing the user. Mono-D just adds a folder to the 
file system, as you'd expect. Since D's file scanning 
functionality is based on paths, doesn't it make sense that the 
"add folder" menu should actually add a folder?