Because you can just "go to line" and the current line is also displayed already. having the line numbers in a side column is redundant, so its far from critical (that's why the bug didnt get fixed).

Personally i also prefer to have the line number in the status bar, because side bar adds visual clutter and isn't really useful.

It's the same with VIM btw. Default setup doesn't have line numbers but you see them in the status bar. Some people like to have line numbers on the side tho.

I don't use line numbers in VS, because clicking on an error message takes me directly to the line I care about.

In Firefox, viewing the source from the error console highlights the line that the error was on.