In reply to Mike.

I would love to find out more about the issues you are experiencing with the columns block Mike. I absolutely agree it's an important one that needs feedback just like yours, thank you for offering that. There are a number of iterations planned, but could you perhaps make an issue here: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/new/choose to explain what you are experiencing that makes it unusable.

Regarding widgets it's worth noting that this will come over phase one and two. You are absolutely correct that as of today a lot of widgets don't have a block, but many are coming. Latest comments is the latest one being worked on there for example.