> VBA not developped or improved since the late 90s (there was an interesting attempt at one point, VSTA, but it was canned)
VSTA was not canned [0], but core Office apps never supported it. IIRC, the only Office app that ever used (uses?) VSTA instead of VBA is InfoPath. VSTA was more of a replacement for VBA as an offering for other people (VBA, as well as being used in office, was available for others to use in their apps), who didn't have Office’s backward compatibility constraints.
I believe at that time there were talks about VSTA being made available in other parts of office, living alongside VBA. It never happened but I thought that was a good way forward to phase out VBA.
VSTA was not canned [0], but core Office apps never supported it. IIRC, the only Office app that ever used (uses?) VSTA instead of VBA is InfoPath. VSTA was more of a replacement for VBA as an offering for other people (VBA, as well as being used in office, was available for others to use in their apps), who didn't have Office’s backward compatibility constraints.
[0] VSTA 2019 SDK is available here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=583...