More than a decade back I had introduced a concept in my repository-hosted theme, called "Ad hoc widget areas". This was before page builders, and at a time when it was OK to bundle widgets and shortcodes in themes.

The concept was easy - you could configure these widget areas to display any number of columns, and they could include from an assortment of widgets.

One of the widgets I used to bundle was called "Query Posts", which used to behave pretty much like the Query block - you could display posts as regular posts, excerpts, magazine-style content, large tiles with just the featured image, lists etc. You could pull from different post types, specify different criteria (tags, categories etc.), include / exclude posts, order them using any of the standard ways etc. Pretty much the only difference with the current Query block was that the UI was more textual (with form fields etc.) as opposed to graphical.

The combination of the "Ad hoc Widget Areas" and the "Query Posts" widget was quite a hit with users of the theme.

Glad to see that WP is finally catching up and offering some of this bundled within the core. While I intensely dislike the Gutenberg interface and the amount of bloat Gutenberg introduces (the first plugin I install on every new site is "Disable Gutenberg"), I am fully on board with two things in particular about it:
* The concept of presenting blocks as comments (eliminating nasty surprises such as shortcode markup upon deactivation).
* Bundling many of these much needed constructs into the core. While many concepts in the core have been abandoned after being introduced with much fanfare, things such as the Query block are likely to keep getting the attention that they deserve.