Mapping solely in the 3D viewport in Radiant is pretty straightforward and painless. It's not like TB is the only one doing 3D editing. 

;-) 

I know it's possible to do some basic brush manipulation and entity creation in Radiant's 3D window, but I don't think I'd call it straight forward and painless. 

like vertex manipulation, which cannot be done in 2D views.
lol 

 

You can! Hold n or v or something, JPL knows. Of course this generates garbage though. 

I love how this has turned into a bitching thread

very Quake

well if SOMEONE who just make it so (lol).. 

n is free vertex mode. Killer. 

hue 

Trenchbroom is still the sexiest of editors, just to be clear! :P 

is indeed sexy, but the lack of an orthographic view makes it a no-go for me :(

I'd recommend GTK/NetRadiant. 

What I did with Qmap, Qbsp256, Thread, Deathmatchmaker and Qoole will fortunately will be evaluated as my five pence I had left for an editor. 

I never understood why (it seemed) so few people used this. I tried everything that was out there (back then) and nothing came close. So flexible in its layout, and plenty of features.

But I was an MS fanboy, and BspEditor had that look and feel as far as I was concerned. Maybe it was just because I was using Windows on a PC?

The only thing it lacked was a decent built-in compiler but I wrote a little GUI that I could call direct from BspE and I was as happy as the proverbial sandboy.

I created many maps with BspE and even released about a dozen or so. It was fun. 

had the possibillity to change the editor, bars, colours and screen layout at own choice, which was rather unusual that time! 

TrenchBroom (Version 2)
J.A.C.K (formerly "Jackhammer")
Custom Netradiant
GtkRadiant 1.6

Compilers:
Enhanced Tyrutils by ericw
Enhanced BJP tools by rebb 

My introduction to mapping was through the Cube series of games, so I've always tended towards 3D editors and wyswyg etc, which is some of what TB offers, so finding out that it existed was great. I'm pretty new to Quake as well, so TB is the only editor I've ever used.

But still... I feel like I'm really missing something with other editors. I've looked at them, and they just seem so hostile and intimidating. I mean honestly, I look at something like this, J.A.C.K. or whatever it's called now, and I just don't get it. the 3D view is fine, and demonstrates that this is a somewhat detailed area and so on, but the 2D views...

it's such a mess! It's so dense with information, edges, vertices etc. all layered over each other to the point where I just can't decipher it.

What's the thought process that goes into using such an interface? It obviously works for a lot of people over the course of multiple decades, so it's hardly bad... I just don't get it.
I feel like a tool for not understanding, please enlighten me :( 

that when you are making a level in a 4-port editor such as JACK that the vertices make much more sense to you as you have the knowledge of the entire map. There are many tools that assist with the views such as vis-groups and highlighting, cordons, etc.

It really is just what you are comfortable with. I had trouble with TB due to the lack of 2d views because that's what I've always used 

Before Quake we mapped for Doom. 2D was all Doom had and we got used to it.

On the other hand, the overlapping of everything in the 2D views of a Quake map can get confusing. I generally do all the moving around, looking, and selecting in the 3D window. Once a brush or entity is selected I use the 2D view, but sometimes vertex manipulation is easier in the 3D window.

My setup in Netradiant is one big 3D view pane, a tall 2D view pane to the left (I use ctl-tab to switch view direction), and a short texture pane below the 3D pane. 

The 2D views for me in J.A.C.K/Worldcraft/Hammer I only ever look at when I already have selected what I want to manipulate, either move, resize, rotate, or skew. Other than that, no their just a mess of useless lines. Really and truly they only ever need to show what is selected unless you want to see the top view layout of the level.

-Hammer veteran of 12 years 

I normally just select a bunch of busy geometry and press h.

If I want to see it again I press u. 

in J.A.C.K FYI. 

Can hide/unhide with H and shift+H in Netradiant.

There's also a filter list. You can selectively filter out things like entities, clips, triggers, etc. I wish it had more choices (just lights, only point entities, etc.) but what's there does help. 

put them separately into visgroups and you can hide them, at least in WC/Hammer/JACK. It's a bit of work at first but can speed things up a lot.

If only editing multiple entities at once fast was possible it would be an even better option. 

Why would anybody use hammer or worldcraft over jack(hammer)?

The only reason that I could think of is if you were actively developing for valve games as well as quake.